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BT 75 .S64 1926 
Sheldon, Henry C. 1845-1928 
System of Christian doctrin 








SYSTEM 


OF 


CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 


BY 


HENRY C. SHELDON, 


PROFESSOR IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY, AND AUTHOR OF ‘‘ HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN 
DOCTRINE,” “‘ KISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH,” ETC, 


Revised Edition. 





THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK = CINCINNATI 


Copyright, 1903, by 
HENRY C. SHELDON 


Printed in the United States of America 


First Edition Printed September, 1903 
Reprinted October, 1907; September, 1908; April, 1909; July, 1910; September, 1911 
October, 1912; May, 1915; December, 1916; March, 1922; April, 1926 


PREFACE. 


Few readers will be disposed to ask from the author an 
apology for the brevity of the treatise. It is in order, how- 
ever, to explain that there has been no remorseless sacrifice 
of dogmatic material for the sake of limiting the bulk of the 
work. We have not been restrained from freeing our mind 
on all the principal themes of Christian dogmatics. The 
brevity attained is largely due to the sparing use of history, 
except as subservient to the proof of dogmatic propositions. 
It was our conviction that there is scanty propriety in at- 
tempting to import into a constructive treatise a great part 
of the history of doctrine. While admitting that the fruits 
of doctrinal history need to be brought under contribution 
by the framer of a theological system, we were persuaded 
that this can be done without a bulky reproduction of doc- 
trinal details. 

As to the compass of the work, or the circle of admitted 
topics, very little time has been spent in an attempt to deter- 
mine what a theological encyclopedia of an ideal order might 
prescribe. We have included such themes as seemed appro- 
priate to the sphere for which the book was more directly 


fashioned. 
tii 


iv PREFACE. 


No discreet reader will expect to find in the volume a sat- 
isfactory solution of all theological problems. We claim 
only to have made a patient and industrious effort to explore 
the great themes whose significance must forever stimulate 
to thought, while their depths reach beyond the capacity of 
any measuring lines that have yet been placed in the hands 
of men. 

So far as conscious purpose is concerned, we have not 
written for the satisfaction of any party, whether conserva- 
tive or radical. The oft-repeated but thoroughly flippant 
assumption of the ultra-conservative, that any departure from 
the traditional basis is likely to endanger the whole fabric of 
the faith, has not deterred us from giving hospitality to rela- 
tively new views where a sane consideration of the data 
seemed to require their admission. On the other hand, the 
disparaging estimate which the intemperate radical is wont 
to award to the thought and belief of past generations has 
not hindered us from appropriating, with affection and vener- 
ation, every portion of a long-treasured faith to which good 
reasoning and judicial historic sense seemed to us to leave 
a place. It is our conviction that any value which may be- 
long to the treatise can legitimately be ascribed in large part 
to the writer’s endeavor to keep above the plane of a provin- 


cial and partisan outlook. 


Boston UNIVERSITY, 
August, 1903. 


PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. 


ee 








The revision pertains in particular to the more construct- 
ive portions of the chapters on the Person and Work of 
Christ. The fundamental ideas contained in these chapters 
as originally printed have not been changed; but some new 
materials have been added, and such a disposition has been 
given to the subject-matter as is favorable to a clear and 
unified view. 

Roston UNIVERSITY, 

May, 1912. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/systemofchristia0Oshel_ 0 


CONTENTS. 





PART I. 


LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN 
SYSTEM. 


CHAPTER -I, 


THE PRINCIPLES OR CONDITIONS OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 


PAGE 

I. The Necessity of a Unitary ea Agent as a Con- 
dition of Knowledge. 3 

II. The Failure of the Sensational BevChaIoe Gaeconen 
by its Denial of a Unitary Psychical Agent . . 4 

IiI. The Categories, or the Primary Forms of Intuition 
and of Thought, as Conditions of Cognition . : 8 

IV. Question whether the Dependence of Knowledge upon 
Subjective Factors is Prejudicial to its Certainty . 9 


V. Question as to the Objective Validity of the Categories 10 
VI. A Warrant for Believing that the World is a Snare 
for the Interpretation "of Reason . 16 


VII. Grounds for Rational Inference Saprlicns by ener 
ence of Volitional Energy and of Various Classes 


of Feelings . : ; : : A Petit Gy 

VIII. Grounds of Rational Inference Furnished by Histor- 
ical Continuity of Ideas or Beliefs. ; 24 

IX. The Function of Reason in Relation to Revelation ata 
the Possible Service of the Latter to the Former . 27 
X. Relation of the Idea of God to Rational Certainty . 31 


vii 


Vill 


Vi. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER II. 
THE EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 


Propriety of Introducing the Topic of the Divine Ex- 
istence at this Point. : 


. Definition of the terms ‘ Person ”’ en a Infinite,” and 


Proof of the saan of ane with In- 
finitude. ; 


. Comparative View of Anti-T Hetstie Aiheontes ; 
. Economy of Assumptions Shown not to be Character- 


istic of Anti-Theistic Theories 


. Criticism of Materialism . 
. Criticism of Pantheism : 
. Consideration of the Extent to yh Theistic “Faith 


Depends upon Formal Argumentation 


. The Cosmological Argument 


The Teleological or Design Argument 


. The Argument from Human Nature. : 
. An Alleged Deficiency in the Foregoing pee ee é 
. Criticism of Some Inconclusive Arguments 


CHAPTER IIL. 
REVELATION. 


Possibility and Probability of Special Revelations in 
View of the Existence of a Personal God 


. Rational Presuppositions Respecting the Process of 


Revelation, as Founded in the Intellectual and 
Moral apne of Men 


. The Method ofthe Biblical Revelation as Corresponc: 


ing with the Presuppositions . 

The Proof for the Bible which is Thvelged in its ecites 
prehensiveness, or in the Variety and Balance of 
the Factors which it Contains 

The Signal Proof for the Bible which is Con eenede in 
the Unique Personality of Christ with its Appro- 
priate Historical Antecedents and Consequents 

Evidence for the Bible in the Facts of FiNdon ri 
Foresight ‘ : ‘ : ‘ 


PAGE 
oD 
34 
38 
39 
AI 
50 
52 
55 
58 
65 


68 
69 


74 


76 


79 


82 


go 


102 


CONTENTS. 


. The Evidence of Miracles . 
. The Subjective Proof, or the Byidence Burcistien by 


the Christian Consciousness . 


. The Evidence Based on a So Wie of Raored 


Books . 


. The Proper Lamia? of the Bible, or the Tests of 


Canonicity 


. Questions of Authorship. as Related to Biblical Ne 


thority . 


. Inspiration 
XIII. 


Question of the Sarees of the Biblical Pevelatter 
or of the Possibility of Authoritative Supplements . 


BARA LE 


128 


149 


THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AND OF HIS RELATION 


TO THE WORLD AT LARGE. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE ATTRIBUTES OF GoD. 


. Reasons for Concluding that the Theme of the Chap- 


ter Lies Within the Sphere of Possible Knowledge 


. The Metaphysical or Non-Ethical Attributes 
. The Moral Attributes 


Relation of Will in God to His Nines a fies to 
the Standard of Truth and Right . 


CHAPTER : II. 
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS IN THE GODHEAD. 


The Historical Data for the Divinity of Christ . 


. Historical Data for the nae and era of 


the Holy Spirit. 


. Extent to which the iikeetical® ines Afford Grathha 


for a Definite Trinitarian Theory . 
Relation of Philosophy to the Trinitarian rae 


159 


167 
183 


Igo 


1g2 
212 


216 
222 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER III. 


Gop AS CREATOR AND UPHOLDER OF THE “Worn, AND Hits 
PROVIDENCE THEREIN. 


PAGE 

I. Creation Considered from the Standpoint of Revelation 228 
II. Creation from the Standpoint of Science . : - aesG 
III. Creation from the Standpoint of Rae . eae 
IV. Conservation . i 4 ; ; hae 
WV eebLovidence =. B\. : ‘ ‘ ; ° : 2 zag 


PART SIGL 


THE SUBJECTS OF GOD’S MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


CHAPTER I. 
ANGELS. 


I. The Point of View from which the Bible Deals with 


Angelology . ; Zee 
II. Main Facts Respecting the Dee ontiens a Biblical 

Angelology . ; 258 
III. Matters More or Less Ciearly repeated Respeenne 

Angels. : ; ; : : ; . 26a 
IV. Points Open to Sageerae on : 262 


V. Biblical Teaching Respecting Satan rie Evil anger 263 


VI. The Reason why God Tolerates the met of Satan 
and Evil Angels . : 270 


CHAPTER II. 
MEN. 


I. Factors in Man’s Being . ; : “Pere 
II. Question of Exemption from Bodily Death 4  Eaae 
III. Question of the Soul’s Immortality . : : - 279 
IV. Theories of the Origin of Souls , : odo pee 

V. Conscience : A : ; ; é 4 e- 289 
VI. Freedom . 5 ; ‘ ; ; ; : ~ ean 


CONTENTS, xi 


PAGh 
VII. Original Righteousness. . ‘ 303 
VIII. Grounds of the Possibility of tte ; ; 305 
IX. Biblical and Rational Data as to Man’s Condition by 
Birth, or the Question of Original Sin. : Sex) 
PAR UG? IV, 


THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE REDEEMER, 


CHAPTER I. 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 


I. The Fact of Christ’s Human Nature ‘ : EL 

II. Distinctive Features of Christ as Man - ' 330 
III. The Problem of the Union of the Human and the 

Divine in Christ . ‘ » 4338 

IV. Criticism of Some Modern Christological fiheorice Hee s0 


V. Grounds of Preference for the Catholic Theory of Unique 
Relationship of the Divine and the Human in Christ. 351 


VI. Design of the Incarnation : : : : He YS 


CHAPTER II. 


THe Work oF CHRIST, ESPECIALLY IN THE PHASE OF 
RECONCILIATION OR ATONEMENT, 


I. A General Glance at the Offices of Christ. , . 360 

II. Canons for Interpreting the Scriptural References to 
the Work of Atonement or Reconciliation 366 

III. Points Respecting Atonement which are Fairly Estab- 
lished by the Contents of Scripture ; ip Ke 

IV. Theories which must be Pronounced Tadentet in 
the Light of Scriptural Teaching . s 386 

V. Theories which Exaggerate some Phase of Christ’s 
Work of Atonement. 391 

VI. The Elements of the Theory eich Best Agrees with 
Scriptural and Rational Data d 401 


VII. Answers to Objections to the Idea of Atigeatert eNiAr 


Xil 


CONTENTS. 


PART eV: 


THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION OR THE PRACTICAL 


REALIZATION OF THE REDEMPTIVE PURPOSE. 


THE APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION BY THE INDIVIDUAL. 


VII. 


CHAPTER I. 


Universality of the Opportunity to aap the 
Salvation Provided in -Christ : 


. The Human Conditions of Appropriation . 
. Salvation in its Objective Aspect, or Justification with 


its Accompaniment of Adoption and Heirship 


. Salvation in its Subjective Aspect, ‘or etal 


Regeneration, and Sanctification 


. The Relation between the Fae and the Sibiect 


tive Aspect . ‘ 
The Consciousness or Asatte of Salvation : 
The Possibility of a Loss of Salvation . ° . 


CHAPTER ILI. 


PAGE 


417 
434 


441 
453 


468 
469 
476 


CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ITS ASSOCIATED CHARACTER, OR THE 


Vur. 


CHURCH AND HER ORDINANCES. 


The Nature of the Christian Church eon e c 
. Criticism of the Ultra-Sacerdotal Conception of the 
Church ‘ : : ° , 
. The Ministry of the Word : : , 
. Prayer as Related to Christian Eestherhoad ‘ 
The Sacraments in General é a . ° 
. Baptism . : : j ; ; a ; : 
. The Lord’s Supper . ; : , : : 
The Alleged Sacrament of Panenee ; ‘ ° : 


479 


488 
593 
5°97 
508 
511 
523 
531 


CONTENTS. xill 


CHAPTER III, 


THe COMPLETING STAGES IN THE PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH 
oR KINGDOM oF Gop. 

PAGE 
I, The Consummation of the Church Militant . - 3§40 
II, The Life after Death in its More Immediate Conditions 551 
III. The Second Advent and the Resurrection ‘ Sat 
IV. The Judgment. ; ; ‘ ° : . - 566 
V_ The Final Dispensation . ; ; ° ° - 568 


APPENDIX. 
I. The Miracle of Christ’s Resurrection ; : Ox 
II. Ethnic Systems Especially as Respects Trinitarian 
Features : : : 4 : , Ph SO 
III. Scholastic Realism . R 601 


IV. The Theory of a Merely Ideal Preéxistence of Christ 609 
V. Some Ethico-religious Questions: 


1. Marriage and Divorce . : : : pen Ons 
2. Sunday Observance. 5 ; : . 619 
3. Temperance : . : : . 2 Ome 
REVIEW SCHEME ‘ ‘ : ; : : A - 629 


INDEXES : ; : ‘ H : : ; SEO 


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LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE 
CHRISTIAN SYSTEM. 


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LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE 
CHRISTIAN SYSTEM. 


SF 9 al oS 


THE PRINCIPLES OR CONDITIONS OF RATIONAL 
CERTAINTY. 


I.— THe NECESSITY OF A UNITARY PSYCHICAL AGENT AS 
A CONDITION OF KNOWLEDGE. 


CoMPLETE agnosticism involves mental suicide or immoral 
dogmatism. If there are no trustworthy grounds for any 
conclusion, then the conclusion that nothing can be known is 
as groundless as every other, and the person who utters it in- 
dulges in self-contradictory babbling or in conscious falsehood. 
In the absence of knowledge, thought is without valid ma- 
terials, and speech can have only the brute function of ex- 
pressing blind impulse. 

It may be claimed, perhaps, that there is room for opinion 
where knowledge proper is denied. But the ultimate ground 
of preferring any opinion to its opposite must be its better 
agreement with known truths or facts. Accordingly, in the 
lack of a substratum of knowledge, opinions are left without 
any real justification. 

Passing from these truisms we are confronted by the seri- 


3 


4 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


ous problem of the conditions of knowledge, or the grounds 
and methods of rational certainty. 

Real knowledge presupposes a real subject, a psychical 
agent, unitary and persisting, capable of reacting against im: 
pressions and interpreting them. Without the psychical agent 
it is conceivable that there might be a succession of nerve vi 
brations, but it is not conceivable that they should bear any 
meaning or result in knowledge. A nerve vibration could not 
know itself even as a vibration, to say nothing about connect- 
ing itself with an exterior cause, without being hypostasized 
by some unthinkable magic into a real subject. 

Knowledge, even if it can exist at all, cannot make the least 
advance without acts of distinction, comparison, memory, and 
judgment. Now it requires a unitary psychical agent to com- 
pare, to distinguish, to remember, and to form judgments. 
One of the terms or members which enter into the process 
must be held while another is brought into relation with it; 
or, if the attention passes back and forth between the terms, 
each must be recognized as that which was previously known. 
Rule out the psychical agent with its consciousness of identity 
in the midst of change, leave only a passive organism receiv- 
ing impressions from the outer world (or from some unknown 
source), and you have ruled out all rational conception of the 
most elementary facts of the mental life. Analysis, compari- 
son, memory and judgment have become enigmas. 


II.—Tue FaIturE oF THE SENSATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 
OcCCASIONED BY ITS DENIAL OF A UNITARY PSYCHICAL 
AGENT. 


Radical sensationalism, as denying a proper unitary subject 
of the mental life, can provide for nothing better than a pro- 
cession of unrelated sensations. It has no way of connecting 
the sensations or of turning them into materials for thought. 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 5 


It can assume like sensations or unlike sensations, but it 
affords no basis for a judgment of likeness or unlikeness. It 
can predicate a change in sensations, and, making conscious- 
ness only another name for a present sensation or group of 
sensations, can speak of a change of consciousness ; but it 
affords no rational ground for supposing a consciousness of 
change. No more does it afford a ground for consciousness 
of persistence, for that involves memory, and is thus depen- 
dent upon an act of combination. By excluding a unitary self- 
conscious subject, which, being present to each member of a 
series, can truly relate any one with the others, thoroughgoing 
sensationalism runs into unavoidable bankruptcy in its psy- 
chological theory. 

A near approach to a confession of this outcome has been 
made by so distinguished a representative of the sensational 
philosophy as John Stuart Mill. “If we speak of the mind,” 
he says, ‘as a series of feelings, we are obliged to complete 
the statement by calling it a series of feelings which is aware 
of itself as past and future; and we are reduced to the alter- 
native of believing that the mind, or ego, is something differ- 
ent from any series of feelings, or possibilities of them, or of 
accepting the paradox, that something which ex hypothesi is 
but a series of feelings can be aware of itself as a series.” ! 
This confession is good, and the author might well have joined 
with it a practical token of repentance in an attempt to recon- 
struct his philosophical system on a-sound basis. 

Herbert Spencer, who in one connection and another has 
given expression to the most unmitigated sensationalism, if he 
has not confessed in so many words the disagreement of his 
system with fundamental facts, has at least illustrated its short- 
comings by irrelevant, arbitrary, or contradictory representa- 
tions. His elaborate picturing of happenings, real or imagin- 
ary, within the nervous system, gives no insight into mental 





1 Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, p. 213. 
2 


6 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


reality, and, so far as founding a rational psychology is con- 
cerned, reaches only to the commonplace fact that the mind 
is more or less conditioned in its operations by the body. In 
order to provide for mental functions he is obliged to assume 
and to smuggle in that which he professes to deduce. In ac- 
counting for the genesis of thought, as Thomas Hill Green 
remarks, “he thinks of the multiplication of impressions as 
already involving a recognition of their relations, even when 
he is treating of it as the efficient cause which is gradually to 
result in such a recognition. The one consciousness, equally 
present to, yet distinguishing itself from successive feelings, 
without which there could be no such synthesis of them as is 
necessary to a recognition of their difference in kind and de- 
gree, and to their constituting a consciousness of change, is 
first taken for granted and then represented as resulting from 
the synthesis which presupposes it.’’!_ Spencer’s resort to evo- 
lution does not help the case in the least ; for the difficulty 
to be dealt with is the inconceivability of mental experience 
at all, as either beginning or continuing, apart from a unitary 
psychical agent or conscious ego. It is also a comment on 
the alleged adequacy of his sensational theory, that Spencer, 
in order to escape sheer idealism, is constrained to bring back 
the ego which he had expelled. His fundamental view makes 
the mental order, the purely determined, a resultant of the 
physical order, and reduces our irrepressible conviction of 
freedom to a standing illusion. But “in his argument with 
the idealist the ego acquires a new character. It is no longer 
a series of faint impressions, or the inner side of nerve-motions, 
but a true source of energy, and the warrant for affirming a 
thing-series, apart from the thought-series, is found in the fact 
that our energy is resisted by an energy not our own. This 
is excellent doctrine, but it does not agree with the other doc- 
trine, that the ego is only a sum of mental states, and that 








1 Works, I, 438. 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 7 


mental states affect no physical states.”’! Once more, Spencer 
denies that anything can be subject and object at once, and 
so rules out the possibility of immediate self-consciousness, 
Yet, on the other hand, he makes all our psychical states, as 
well as our physical states, manifestations of the absolute, that 
is, of the mysterious power back of all phenomena ; he defines 
consciousness as the aggregate of these psychical states, the 
aggregate of thoughts and feelings present to an individual at 
any time; and he maintains that there is in us not merely a 
negative but a positive, though indefinite, consciousness of the 
absolute. Now as being manifested in every psychical state 
the absolute is the subject of all consciousness ; consequently, 
it is the subject of the particular consciousness of which it is 
the object, that is, subject and object at once. The conscious- 
ness in question may be indefinite, but it is enough that it is 
a consciousness at all. The representation logically concedes 
the possibility of an immediate self-consciousness. Spencer, 
therefore, if a glance be taken through his system, is seen to 
offer a very fair equivalent for Mill’s notable confession. In 
proportion as the great ingenuity and industry expended by 
him have failed to sustain the sensational theory, he has the 
more fully illustrated its intrinsic faultiness. 

Sensationalism, whether formally materialistic or not, in- 
volves necessitarianism. Self-determination is ruled out by 
the very definition of the ego which makes it only a series of 
feelings or sum of psychical states, unless, perchance, feelings 
and states can be thought of as producing or transforming them- 
selves. Now the doctrine of necessity, to say nothing about 
its moral bearings, assails the trustworthiness of knowledge. 
Spencer, to be sure, is of the contrary mind. He says: “ Psy- 
chical changes either conform to law or they do not. If they 
do not conform to law, this work, in common with all works on 
the subject, is sheer nonsense : no science of psychology is pos- 


1 Bowne, Metaphysics, first edition, pp. 386, 387; revised edition, pp. 319, 320. 


8 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


sible. If they do conform to law, there cannot be any such 
thing as free will.’! The philosopher at this point might 
have reminded himself that there is in fact a vast deal of non- 
sense in the world, — for example, the very general conviction 
respecting the reality of free will ; that all this, on his premises, 
is necessitated by law ; and that, accordingly, the predication of 
law is no security against the presence of a great amount of 
nonsense, whether inside or outside of the work entitled “ Prin- 
ciples of Psychology.” A better insight would have revealed 
to him, that, where all is necessitated, one event is just as con- 
formable to the nature of thimgs as another, and that, accord- 
ingly, only in a system which includes freedom is there any 
tenable ground of distinction between truth and error. Mill, 
after a fashion, confessed that there is no intrinsic distinction 
between them by suggesting that, possibly, in some other 
world, two and two may make five. 


III. — Tuer CATEGORIES, OR THE PRIMARY FoRMS OF INTU- 
ITION AND OF THOUGHT, AS CONDITIONS OF COGNITION. 


The affirmation that knowledge presupposes a unitary psy- 
chical agent is one way of saying that the possibility of knowl- 
edge is dependent upon the existence of a mind dowered from 
the start with a distinct constitution, a constitution inclusive of 
powers of acting as well as of capacities for being acted upon. 
Whatever may be afforded from without, cognition takes place 
only as the mind reacts upon this material, in harmony with its 
constitutional outfit. 

It is the honor of Kant that he duly emphasized the scope 
and office of this subjective factor in cognition. Perceiving 
that sensations, save as they meet an organizing and inter- 
‘preting faculty, could afford only a confused manifold, and 





1 Principles of Psychology, I, 503. 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 9 


that experience, as being always of the individual, could never 
contribute the element of necessity and universality which ap- 
pears in many of our judgments, he concluded that rational ex- 
perience is dependent upon certain a priori forms of intuition 
and of thought, such as space, time, cause, substance, unity, 
plurality, likeness and unlikeness, These are not indeed, as he 
acknowledged, antecedent to such experience in point of time ; 
but logically they are its condition. Unless already at hand, 
implicitly contained in the mental constitution, rational experi- 
ence could not begin. Cognition accordingly is a work of 
construction. Though the materials may be furnished from 
without, the aspect which they take on in the view of the 
knowing subject is due not merely to what they are in them- 
selves, but also to the mental forms by means of which they 
are apprehended or so related as to give rise to knowledge. 
In other words, the mind knows things as they appear to it, 
and the appearance is the resultant of two factors: (1) the 
nature of the things; (2) the mental forms by means of which 
things become matter of cognition. 

Whether the list of a priort forms, as given by Kant, 
is fully correct or not, we are not called upon to determine. 
The point to be emphasized is that there are such forms, a 
positive constitution of mind conditioning cognition, operat- 
ing as a constant factor in determining the appearance of 
objective reality. 


IV.— QUESTION WHETHER THE DEPENDENCE OF KNOWL- 
EDGE UPON SUBJECTIVE FACTORS IS PREJUDICIAL TO 
Irs CERTAINTY. 


Thus far the theory of Kant in no wise assails the trust- 
worthiness of knowledge. The affirmation that the mind is an 
active instrument in cognition, and that its forms help to de- 
termine the appearance of objective reality, amounts simply to 


IO LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


the statement that the mind cannot abandon itself or alienate 
itself from its own standpoint. Nothing is disturbed thereby. 
Community of knowledge is provided for in the common 
mental constitution of men, which under the like conditions 
provides for like cognitions of objective reality. This reality 
is not made the less real or fixed because men are compelled 
to know it after the manner of men, or as beings endowed 
with a specific constitution. Neither can its significance 
be regarded as in any wise disparaged by the same fact. 
If things were made for minds, then what they appear to be, 
that is, what they are in conjunction with minds, is of vastly 
more consequence than what they are in themselves, or apart 
from that conjunction. The supposition that to an order of 
beings possessing a different constitution the universe would 
appear different does not open the door to any appalling scep- 
ticism. Very likely it would appear different in some respects 
to a different cognitive agent. But then, it is to be noticed 
that it remains in question how far a representative of an un- 
known order of beings might differ from us in intellectual 
constitution and yet be truly cognitive. This much is certain : 
inasmuch as reason cannot be asked to commit suicide, it 
would be gratuitous folly to admit that any fixed datum of our 
rational nature can be contradicted by the experience of any 
finite intelligence whatever. To that extent our confidence in 
our capacity for knowledge ought to stand firm against all 
hypothetical ghosts. 


V.— QUESTION AS TO THE OBJECTIVE VALIDITY OF THE 
CATEGORIES. 


The fact that such categories as cause, substance, number, 
and quantity are subjective, or inherent in the constitution of 
mind, involves by itself no denial of their objective validity. 
It was at this point that Kant stumbled. He did not, it is 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. II 


true, hold with steady consistency to his conclusion that the 
categories are only regulative of mental operations, and cannot 
be predicated of external reality. In various connections 
one or another category is really assigned an objective 
validity. Still, his general teaching implies that the forms of 
thought cannot be applied to the outer world. But why may 
not this be done? Take for example the category of causality 
— what stands in the way of assuming its objective validity? 
In fact, this must be assumed if any consistent ground is to 
be left for affirming the existence of an external world; for 
only that which does something, or is a cause, has any con- 
ceivable means of advertising its existence; and only that 
which acts in like manner under like conditions, or according 
to a regular scheme of causation, has any conceivable means 
of making known (to the outside observer) its identity. 
Abridge to a purely subjective range the category of causation, 
and the individual man is left alone, bereft not only of his 
theoretical warrant for assuming an external world, but also 
of that for inferring the existence of any fellow-man. Others 
of the categories — that of number for example — enforce 
themselves as equal necessities of thought in relation to the 
objective sphere, and no pretext for questioning their validity 
can be discovered. ! 

Since the categories belong to the primal data of mind, and 
reason cannot invite to the choice of a position which involves 


1 “The fact that a category lives subjectively in the act of the knowing mind 
is no proof that the category does not at the same time truly express the nature of 
the reality known. It would be so only if we suppose the knowing subject to 
stand outside of the real universe altogether, and to come to inspect it from afar 
with mental spectacles of a foreign make. In that case, no doubt, the forms of 
his thought might be a distorting medium. But the case only requires to be 
stated plainly for its inherent absurdity to be seen. The knower is in the world 
which he comes to know, and the forms of his thought, so far from being an 
alien growth or an imported product, are themselves a function of the whole. ... 
Unless we consider existence a bad joke, we have no option save tacitly to pre- 
suppose the harmony of the subjective function with the nature of the universe 
from which it springs.” (Andrew Seth, Two Lectures on Theism, pp. 18, 19.) 


I2 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


overwhelming embarrassment to our rational and ethical life, 
it is reasonable to regard any one of these mental forms as 
objectively valid until convincing proof of the contrary is fur- 
nished. In the view of some thinkers the possibility of such 
proof being developed is not to be conceded, as opening too 
wide a door to scepticism. But, certainly, it is conceivable 
that the categories (the so-called forms of “intuition” as well 
as those of “thought” being included under this term) do 
not all stand on a precise parity as regards objective validity, 
though all are equally original as mental forms. Consequently, 
while it would make a fatal embarrassment to reason to sur- 
render them in a body as respects their objective application, 
it might not be a necessity of mental integrity and consis- 
tency to assert that application for every one of them, that is, 
in the sense of making all of them, without exception, to hold 
good for the realm of things, over and above the réle which 
they fulfill in finite minds generally as constant forms for the 
representation of things. Now the history of speculation 
shows that the concept of space is one that is well adapted to 
provoke philosophical questioning. As a mental form it is 
not on a precise parity with some others, since it has obvious 
application only to a part of reality, namely the sensible; and 
in its peculiar character it affords a good field for a duel be- 
tween common-sense and metaphysics. On the one hand is 
the well-nigh invincible force of spontaneous conviction re- 
specting the objective reality of space. On the other hand 
is the difficulty of defining space as real and giving it a con- 
sistent relation to the First Cause. If the terms of being are 
employed in the definition, something else than space is 
described ; and, of course, the terms of not-being, or of purely 
ideal or intellectual being, cannot be used to set forth that 
which by hypothesis is objectively real. If space is made in- 
dependent of the First Cause, a species of dualism is affirmed, 
limitation is put upon God and He is no longer represented 
as the fountain of all reality. If, on the other hand, space is 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 13 


segarded as originated and dependent, as being at once the 
product of energy and objectively real, it ought to express 
some kind of energy; and yet who makes any kind of energy 
a part of the concept of space? The difficulty of the subject 
from this point of view is well illustrated by the remarks of 
Samuel Harris. He pronounces very emphatically for the 
conclusion that it will not do to deny the objective reality of 
space. Nevertheless, when he considers the subject in its 
divine relation, he says: “Space and time have no reality ex- 
cept as forms or constituent elements, eternal and archetypal 
in the absolute reason.” ! Now we surmise that this state- 
ment will be found as crucifying to common-sense, or sponta- 
neous. conviction, as the general doctrine of the ideality of 
space which the learned theologian has so resolutely rejected. 
The statement appears certainly to make space, in its intrin- 
sic relation to the dvine mind, simply ideal or subjective. 
But if space can logically be regarded as simply ideal for the 
divine mind, then the necessary verdict would seem to be that 
it takes rank with mental forms, and subsists only as a sub- 
jective reality ; at any rate, if it is to have other reality than 
this, it must be by creation — by projection from the ideal into 
the actual —and the supposition of a real objective space 
which is the product of creative efficiency is attended, as was 
noticed, with very appreciable difficulties. Speculative per- 
plexities of this sort have led some thinkers to conclude that 
while space is the mental form for cognizing things, it is not 
a form or condition of things themselves. As the cause of 
our perception of sound or color is quite unlike the effect, so 
is it, they claim, in case of the perception of space. The ob- 
jective reality is a complex system of dynamics. To the im- 
pact of this upon the sensorium, the mind responds with its 
amazing faculty of interpretation, and gives, in place of the 
unpicturable relations of forces or energies, the variegated 





i te il Nt te et et Ne Ut lA LE AO EL ALARA AL ALAA RL AA ALS 


1 Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 203. 


14 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


scene of the external world. This doctrine, it will be observed, 
does not make our spatial representations of objects arbitrary. 
The representations in all their details are determined by the 
qualities of the objects; only the outward cause, as in the 
perception of color or sound, is unlike the exhibition of it 
which takes place in the mind. In short, the doctrine of the 
ideality of space is no less compatible with the supposition of a 
real, orderly, and marvellously diversified external world than is 
the most realistic doctrine that can be framed on this subject. 

The attempt to construe the concept of time involves simi- 
lar difficulties. The stickler for the objective reality of time 
may be confronted with such puzzling questions as the follow- 
ing: How many years old was God before the creation of 
the world? If it be said that He was an infinite number of 
years old, how is the congruity between the terms “infinite” 
and “number” to be conceived? What was God doing in the 
time preceding creation, say for such a period of years as may 
be expressed by a line of figures reaching to the fixed star 
Sirius and back again? Did God find time already at hand, or 
did He create it? Ifthe former alternative be taken, how does 
it comport with His absolute supremacy, or with the notion 
of a unitary ground of the universe, that He should have this 
rival to His being? If the other alternative be chosen, how 
are we to conceive of the energy which, it would seem, must be- 
long to time as an objective, created entity? Furthermore, the 
question insinuates itself, How are we to construe real time 
in relation to the notions of past, present and future? To con- 
fine time to the present seems pretty much to annihilate it, 
since the present is but a line without any measurable breadth. 
On the other hand, the past can hardly be regarded as really 
subsistent, and the future is not yet. Thus our real time 
seems to fall into two halves neither of which is real. These 
are difficulties which no ordinary wit can surmount, and they 
do not exhaust the list which confronts the realistic thesis on 
the nature of time. 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 15 


Whether the better alternative is to pronounce against the 
objective reality of either space or time need not be deter- 
mined here. The pertinent consideration is, that there is a 
general presupposition in favor of the conclusion that the men- 
tal forms which condition our cognition of external reality 
have objective validity ; and that consequently no one of them 
ought to be denied such validity unless the denial is required 
for the satisfaction of reason. A rule of this kind provides 
for the due security of intellectual confidence. Spontaneous 
impressions, the ready verdicts of common sense, have to be 
rectified on some points by the critical exercise of reason. 
This is a fact which is known to everyone who passes in any 
degree below the surface of things. The only proper demand 
is that the rectification should not be hastily precipitated, and 
that adequate proof should be given that it is truly required 
for the satisfaction of reason. 

It may be worth while to add that by reason we mean man’s 
rational faculty, or power of judgment, viewed as dealing with 
all available data. Taken in this sense it is a valid criterion. 
What satisfies the total requirement of our rational life meets 
the highest demand that we can make. If one is disposed to 
suggest that perhaps our intellectual satisfaction is intrinsically 
of no consequence, and so may not be in the line of truth, we 
reply that if we are to begin by discrediting our faculties, or 
passing a sentence of virtual self-annihilation, it is foolish to 
reason either about the conditions of knowledge or any other 
subject. Speech on that basis would have no sane office. 

As regards the claims of the “speculative reason” and the 
“practical reason,” respectively, there seems to be no good 
warrant for pushing either aside in favor of the other. While 
it is true that no weaving together of speculative or ideal ele- 
ments can give substantial proof of the actual, it is also true 
that a thought-ideal, which is not seen to be incongruous with 
the actual, may give to the mind a rest and satisfaction that it 
cannot secure in limiting itself to matters of observation or 


16 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


experience proper. The satisfaction in question, in order to 
make much of a basis of rational certainty, needs, of course, 
not to be evanescent or merely personal. It must survive in 
the face of all opposing forces, and serve as a perpetual spring 
in the inner life of men. The thought-ideal which does not 
show itself, after fair opportunity, fitted to establish itself as 
an element in the life of the race, or at least in the better con- 
ditioned portion of the same, has little worth for knowledge. 


VI.—A WARRANT FOR BELIEVING THAT THE WORLD IS 
A SUBJECT FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF REASON. 


The necessary forms of thought serve as a constitutional 
bond between the knowing subject and objective reality. The 
presupposition that they have objective validity is a presuppo- 
sition that the outer world is adjusted to reason and open to 
its interpretation. The full justification of this presupposition 
can be seen only in a comprehensive view of man’s relations. 
It is proper, however, to notice here a subjective ground for 
the reality of the adjustment in question. In whatever way 
it may arise, there can be no doubt as to the felt obligation 
within us to order our lives according to reason. Now the 
natural inference is that the universe in which the rational life 
is to be lived is codrdinated with reason. To suppose that 
the world is a vast frivolity, caprice, or illusion, while the 
inhabitant must be rational, is to conjure up a gratuitous and 
depressing enigma. In proportion, then, as needless self- 
buffeting or self-contradiction is unadulterated foolishness, 
place must be given to the presupposition that the world 
is conformable to reason. This, of course, does not mean that 
it is transparent to limited or undeveloped reason, but only 
that intrinsically it is adjusted to reason, or is a subject for its 
interpretation. The most important items in the interpreta- 
tion of external nature will be touched upon subsequently. 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 17 


VII.— GROUNDS FOR RATIONAL INFERENCE SUPPLIED BY 
EXPERIENCE OF VOLITIONAL ENERGY AND OF VARIOUS 
CLASSES OF FEELINGS. 


While Kant was wrong in questioning the objective validity 
of the categories, he was right in assuming their barrenness 
apart from experience. As method cannot take the place of 
subject-matter, but has its function only in dealing with a 
given subject-matter, so the mental forms have significance 
only in connection with experience, for the rational interpre- 
tation of which they are the constitutional means. Knowledge 
of reality requires experience of the real, interaction between 
the cognitive faculty and some form of reality. 

The reality which is presented to the cognitive faculty, or 
the intellect, as it is otherwise called, may be subjective as 
well as objective. If experience of external nature through 
the medium of sense-perception is a ground for rational and 
far-reaching inference, so also is the experience of volitional 
activity and of various classes of feelings. Facts in the latter 
range are as unmistakably facts as those in the former range, 
and therefore as clearly invite to scientific investigation. 

It would take us out of our proper course to notice at length 
the inferences which may be drawn from the facts of the inner 
experience ; but a few words may be said to illustrate their 
important relation to mental certitude on questions of high 
concern. 

Take, in the first place, the experience of volitional energy. 
We know ourselves as repeatedly putting forth acts of will. 
We seem to ourselves to be free in these acts, that is, to have 
a veritable power of choosing between alternatives. Practi- 
cally nothing can beat out of our minds this conviction of 
free-will. Theoretically, also, it is found to harmonize with or 
to explain fundamental facts which otherwise are utterly 
opaque. It makes errors and sins chargeable to the misdi- 
rected faculties of individuals, whereas the opposing theory of 


18 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


an all-embracing necessity, as leaving no room for misdirection 
of any sort, cancels the proper notion of both error and sin, 
and thus runs into stultification of the intellect and the moral 
sense alike. In fine, the warrant for predicating free-will is 
as clear as that for any truth which depends in the least degree 
upon inference. 

Now this freedom is a pregnant fact. Once admit it, and 
man’s intrinsic relation to the supernatural is brought to view. 
Can necessity produce freedom? Can the self-determining 
spring from the purely automatic? Can the mechanism of 
nature generate that which transcends all the principles and 
laws of mechanism? If not, then man has a higher parentage 
than nature; his freedom is a badge of kinship to a super- 
natural power which has made him in its own likeness. 

In a similar manner the experience of various kinds of 
feelings or emotions affords to the intellect a significant out- 
look. The testimony which they offer may need to be care- 
fully scrutinized. The individual and the transient mingle 
more or less with the sources of the feelings. They are 
shaped by ignorance, misconception, imagination, and _per- 
versity, as well as by better causes. Still they are facts, and 
in spite of all inconstancy and contrariety furnish grounds for 
rational inference. Suppose it to be ascertained that there 
are certain feelings which expand and ennoble any life to 
which they furnish the dominant incentive. Suppose, further, 
that certain assumed truths and agencies are found to be 
uniquely efficient to enthrone these feelings and to secure for 
them a constant reign. Then manifestly, in proportion as the 
ennobling of human personality is regarded as a true end, 
credit must be given to the truths and agencies in question. 

Now the former supposition requires no confirmation. It 
does not need to be demonstrated that the feeling of personal 
obligation proclaims for man a high calling, and that, in pro- 
portion as this feeling becomes intense and constant it tends 
to uplift the life from apathy and weakness into a healthful 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 19 


earnestness and efficiency. It does not need to be proved that 
a love such as Paul celebrates in the thirteenth chapter of First 
Corinthians is intrinsically excellent. No more is it necessary 
to justify reverence for holiness, dread of moral contamination, 
the humility which readily accepts known dependence, and 
aspiration after ideal goodness. Feelings of this order need 
only to be apprehended in their true character to be approved. 
They are known, if recognized at all, to belong to the very 
crown of inward nobility. It is seen that to make them habit- 
ual would be the glorification of the human spirit. 

The second supposition may not be able to claim so unani- 
mous a witness, since it rests upon historical as well as other 
data. Still, it is not arbitrary to conclude that what is best 
and holiest in feeling has in the gospel revelation — in the 
person, work, and truth of Jesus Christan incomparable 
spring. A sober induction leaves no escape from this conclu- 
sion. Grant that so-called Christian history has been stained 
by many enormities, — they are so plainly in contradiction to 
the spirit and precept of the gospel, that they but make a dark 
background for the brighter exhibition of the person and truth 
of Christ. Facts of this order reveal what the gospel has to 
contend against, while those of a contrary order show that 
it has efficacy to contend successfully. Facts of the latter 
kind are not scanty. He who will gather them up and reflect 
upon them need not. lack for a fair equivalent of the Revela- 
tor’s sight of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven. 
To an innumerable multitude it has been made entirely credi- 
ble that the voice of Christ stilled the waves of the sea, for 
the tumult of passion and sin within them has been stilled as 
they have come to Him in faith and self-surrender. In spirit- 
ual fellowship with Him they have obtained inward harmony, 
hope for moral conflict, love and humility for self-denying 
service. From the days of the apostles and apologists this 
story of Christian experience has been repeated, and thou- 
sands of new voices and changed lives add every year their 


20 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


confirmatory witness. Now the force of such evidence cannot 
easily be evaded. There is at least a presumption in favor of 
the essential truth, sanctity, and rightful supremacy of that 
which has this unique power to awaken in the human spirit 
the deepest and most efficacious emotions. 

In a well-guarded view of the importance of the feelings 
it will not be overlooked that they fulfill their normal func- 
tion only in close conjunction with the intellect. In relation 
to cognition, they supply grounds which need to be supple- 
mented by rational inference. In order to issue into knowl- 
edge proper they must be viewed in their relations, and this 
involves a distinctively intellectual activity. Doubtless as the 
mind responds to sense-impressions with so swift a reference 
to the external cause that sensation and perception seem to be 
merged in one, so feelings that have a moral or religious value 
may be so readily and spontaneously construed that the act of 
interpretation shall not be distinctly noted in consciousness. 
But the celerity of an intellectual function is no disproof of its 
importance. Feelings make their full contribution to man’s 
rational life only through interpretation. Moreover, there is 
often much need for a painstaking interpretation, so as not 
rashly to transfer to an objective range that which has only a 
personal or subjective source. To ignore this requirement is 
to open the door to the flights of an unhealthy mysticism. 
Such flights may promise great enlightenment, but they afford 
rather symbols for the imagination than the secure treasure of 
knowledge. Ife who goes out of himself in an ecstasy may 
possibly bring back from his experience in the time of self- 
abdication a new sense of mystery; but he will not return with 
any new means of explaining mysteries to others or even to 
himself. If anyone wishes proof of this let him take a com- 
parative view of all trance-like experiences and theosophic 
flights of which record has been left, and attempt to deduce 
from them any congruous or intelligible system. The ample 
testimony of history supports the conclusion that the consti- 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 21 


tuted order of the universe has not placed any premium upon 
intellectual indolence. An exclusive intellectualism may doubt- 
less issue in ethical and religious barrenness; but a one-sided 
emotionalism is quite as likely to run into a forfeiture of high 
interests. ‘A religion divorced from earnest and lofty thought 
has always, down the whole history of the Church, tended to 
become weak, jejune, and unwholesome ; while the intellect, 
deprived of its rights within religion, has sought its satisfac- 
tion without, and developed into godless rationalism.” ! 

If it is a gross error to make feelings a substitute for the 
intellectual process, it savors at least of exaggeration to 
suppose that they can afford, even under the closest inspec- 
tion, decisive evidence for the details of doctrine. As was 
asserted above, the evidence which comes from this source is 
indeed important. It relates, however, only to the more 
prominent and practical items of the theistic and Christian 
systems. An analysis of the feelings of dependence and obli- 
gation doubtless affords a warrant for the idea of God; but it 
does not supply distinct data for settling the manifold specula- 
tive questions which may be raised respecting the divine nature. 
So also a true inspection of the new consciousness which 
springs up in connection with an inner appropriation of the 
gospel points to the reality of a gracious deliverance through 
Jesus Christ; but it cannot determine the details of the 
redemptive economy. The grounds of judgment here, it is 
true, are largely subjective. There is a chance to assail the 


1 James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, pp. 23, 24. The 
following may fitly be subjoined: “ Feeling viewed as the foundation of thought is 
great.... But feeling used as a substitute for reason is one of the least worthy of 
things.” (Gordon, The Christ of To-Day, p. 60.) “Unless you lift it up into the 
light of thought and examine it often, how do you know into what your cherishes 
religious ideal may not have rotted in the darkness of your emotions?” (Royce 
The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, p. 13.) ‘To say that Christianity is a life 
therefore it is not a doctrine, is to reason very badly. We should rather say, 
Christianity is a life, and therefore it engenders doctrine; for man cannot live his 
life without thinking it. The two things are not hostile; they go together.” 
(Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, p. 24.) 

3 


22 _ LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


critic, who limits the scope of the evidence, with the sugges- 
tion that he has not been blessed with an adequate experience. 
He is not, however, entirely defenseless. He can appeal to 
the judgment of thoughtful minds to confirm the verdict that 
the feelings are not so sharply diagrammed in consciousness 
that they can reflect the distinctions of a detailed theological 
system. He can also cite the fact, that men who seem to be 
imbued equally with an evangelical temper and equally desirous 
to know the whole truth can differ very widely in doctrinal 
conceptions. He will thus have sufficient ground to stand 
upon while he is waiting for some one to prove him in the 
wrong by actually developing from a simple analysis of 
emotional experience a doctrinal system which shall not appear 
arbitrary and far-fetched. 

The connection calls only for a consideration of feelings as 
related to knowledge ; but it will be a pardonable digression 
to notice briefly the relation of feelings to personal religion 
or piety. It is well known that Schleiermacher located the 
essence of personal religion in feeling, and especially empha- 
sized the feeling of dependence. Religious feeling, he claimed, 
is a self-consciousness which is at the same time a conscious- 
ness of a dependent relation to God. In its specifically Chris- 
tian sense it is a consciousness of relation to Jesus of Nazareth 
as the Redeemer of men. Schleiermacher argued that religion 
cannot consist in knowledge, since, in that event, the amount 
of knowledge respecting ethical and dogmatic truths would 
be the measure of religion—a plainly inadmissible hypoth- 
esis. No more can it consist in action, since the moral worth 
of action depends on the impelling motive ; and besides, there 
are internal states which must be pronounced pious apart from 
all consideration of outward manifestation. This reasoning, 
as Schleiermacher took pains to state, does not imply that 
knowledge and action are of no consequence in relation to 
religion. As accessories, as means of nurture and manifesta- 
tion, they are of very high importance. 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 23 


It may reasonably be conceded to Schleiermacher tnat a 
purely intellectual act, as such, cannot be credited with moral 
worth, or be counted intrinsically religious. A speculative 
thought about God, taken simply in that character, has no 
moral worth, whether it be in the mind of saint, angel, or 
devil. Doubtless to pursue knowledge for a good end, to 
think for a godly purpose, is morally worthy and in that 
sense religious. But then, the religion lies rather in the self- 
determination to the intellectual activity in view of a godly 
purpose, than in the intellectual activity itself. The former 
is immediately religious ; the latter is so only instrumentally, 
or by virtue of its subordination to the former. It may like- 
wise be conceded to Schleiermacher that feelings of a certain 
order are intrinsically of religious value. Pure benevolence, 
unselfish love, penitence for sin, and awe for moral order are 
subject to no discount. They must be immediately approved 
as part and parcel of true piety. 

The representation of Schleiermacher needs, however, to be 
qualified in a twofold respect. His emphasis upon the feel- 
ing of dependence was somewhat too exclusive, and he failed 
properly to distinguish and exalt the self-determining faculty, 
the holy will which is central to the morally worthy, at the 
heart of the truly religious. 

Having made one digression in the interest of a definition 
of personal religion, we may as well make a second by further 
defining religion on the side of its relation to morality. If we 
take the latter in its broad sense we find the two to be dis- 
tinguished mainly in respect of relative stress and order of 
thought. The primary point of view in morality is the moral 
constitution and what it demands in relation to one’s self and 
to one’s fellows. But morality cannot stop here. In so far as 
the moral constitution and experience point to the existence of 
a supernatural or divine person, morality calls for a suitable 
bearing toward that person, for an essentially religious relation, 
and out of this relation come added light and incentive for 


24 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


the whole sphere of duty. Religion recognizes at the very 
start man’s relations to a supernatural power or to a divine 
person. That is its fundamental and controlling point of 
view. But it cannot stop here. The relation to the divine 
person cannot be taken in an isolated fashion. Right relation 
to God is incompatible with an immoral relation of any sort, 
whether with one’s self or with one’s fellows. If religion 
does not begin with a well-rounded code of morality it cannot 
end without one. Thus the order is not the same and the 
stress may not be just the same in both cases, but no impor- 
tant element in the one can be ignored in the other. Both 
accentuate obligation, but neither stops with the bare idea of 
obligation as opposed to the notion of a good. Morality finds 
a legitimate incentive to duty in the notion of a supreme good 
for one’s self and one’s fellows, and religion ever looks to a 
divine person as at once a standard of holiness and a fountain 
of blessedness. 


VIII.—Grounpbs oF RATIONAL INFERENCE FURNISHED BY 
H{isroricAL ConTINUITY OF IDEAS OR BELIEFS. 


Individual experience finds a vast supplement in race experi- 
ence. Whatever has been continually repeated in thought, 
feeling, or action affords a ground for inference. In this con- 
nection, however, we notice only the first of these factors. 
The point of inquiry is the extent to which ideas or beliefs 
which have been handed down more or less as a race contri- 
bution can fix the content of knowledge for the individual or 
bind his reason. 

The actual force of historical connections is undoubtedly 
enormous. Each generation is a schoolmaster to the suc- 
ceeding, during the term of its minority. Beliefs, like house- 
hold goods, are passed along from parents to children. The 
type in one family is influenced by that of neighboring fam- 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 25 


ilies. The type of the neighborhood is influenced by that of 
the tribe or nation. Where national bounds are clearly 
marked and of long standing, the national type is likely to be 
firmly compacted, and thus to serve as a strong barrier against 
innovations. 

That the arrangement operates beneficially in important 
respects is quite evident. By community of thought bonds of 
union are established ; and the lives of men, instead of remain- 
ing barren in isolation or clashing in wasteful confusion, are 
woven into great social fabrics. Along with social benefits 
there are also distinct intellectual advantages. The oppor- 
tunities of orderly society are themselves favorable to mental 
acquisition. Moreover, the continuity which is established 
secures to each new generation the advantage of inheriting a 
definite mental capital. The inheritance may be defective in 
one point or another ; but that fact does not disprove its util- 
ity as a whole. It is an uncritical imagination which leads 
anyone to suppose that if children could keep clear of the 
tuition of their elders until, by virtue of their intellectual 
maturity, they can think for themselves, they would thereby 
escape the warping of prejudice, and so come to sound beliefs. 
The difficulty is that an empty mind can make little or no 
progress toward maturity. The mind grows by exercising 
itself with ideas, and defective as the inherited stock may be 
for any generation, it is likely to be better than its childish 
capacity could fashion for itself. 

Persistence of an idea through successive ages establishes 
a certain presumption in its favor. It is to be noticed, how- 
ever, that the strength of the presumption is not necessarily 
in proportion to the antiquity of the idea or the extent of its 
constituency. The amount of real mental scrutiny and test- 
ing to which a notion has been subjected is rather the true 
measure of the presumption. Now that amount is far from 
being determined merely by length of time or breadth of geo- 
graphical area. By accident, by error, or by fraud, an idea 


26 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


may receive an accredited place in a system, and then be upheld 
and propagated by the prestige which belongs to the system. 
A powerful ecclesiasticism may so innoculate its subjects with 
the conviction that the creed is holy in every part, and cannot 
be denied in a single article without peril of damnation, that 
critical inquiry shall for the most part be paralyzed. In fact, 
there have been so much indolence and passivity in the face of 
loud-speaking authority, and the race has been so largely 
befooled, that something might be said in behalf of the pre- 
sumption that on all disputed points the truth lies rather with 
the few than with the many.. The better statement, however, 
comes from putting together the considerations just noted, 
and may be framed in terms like these: Long-continued 
and wide prevalence of an idea or belief creates a presump- 
tion in its favor, provided it seems to have stood by the 
free judgment of men, and not to have been sustained by 
extraneous means. 

From this standpoint it may be said that substantial uni- 
versality of an idea or belief, its appearance and persistence 
within the compass of varied and contrasted systems, fur- 
nishes a strong presumption that it has at least a substratum 
of truth. To lightly pass over its claims would savor of cap- 
tiousness. But, on the other hand, even historical universal- 
ity cannot forestall the critical exercise of reason. Repetition 
of a thought makes something less than a necessity of think- 
ing. The mind affirms the latter not on the ground that a 
thing has been reckoned true so many times in the past, but 
in virtue of the insight that it must always be reckoned true 
where rational procedure is duly observed. Anything which 
is not included in this insight, though it may make a good 
provisional ground to rest upon, falls theoretically under 
liability of more or less revision. 

The attitude which is actually taken toward the historical 
deposit is apt to be affected in no small degree by a moral ele- 
ment. If, on the one hand, excessive vanity and repugnance 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 27 


to restraint may prompt to a reckless disparagement of the 
wisdom and authority of the past, on the other hand, love of 
ease, intolerance of opposition, and thirst for supremacy, may 
prompt to an arbitrary closure against critical investigation 
through appeals to alleged sanctities of antiquity. The erratic 
flights of an intemperate liberalism may be matched by the 
caprice of an indolent and self-confident orthodoxy ; a Vatican 
council may vie with the extravagance of a Jacobin club. It 
requires, indeed, a high measure of unselfish devotion to the 
truth to keep to the right point between the two extremes. 
The task is the more difficult because its fulfillment involves 
progressive readjustment of one’s position. A degree of defer- 
ence to given antecedents which is appropriate to one stage of 
mental development might indicate, if continued beyond that 
stage, an unseemly apathy or servility of spirit. Now, to 
know when and how much to change one’s attitude, so as to 
keep equally clear of intellectual idolatry and intellectual arro- 
gance, implies a perspicuity of vision which certainly cannot 
exist apart from perfect sincerity, and which even that can 
‘guarantee but partially. 


IX.— THE FUNCTION OF REASON IN RELATION TO REVE- 
LATION AND THE POSSIBLE SERVICE OF THE LATTER 
TO THE FORMER. 


In the foregoing discussion, ideas and beliefs have been 
viewed simply as products of the ordinary operation of human 
faculties. The supposition that the historical evolution has 
included a process of divine revelation will of course involve 
special considerations. 

It would anticipate the theme of a later chapter to discuss 
here the fact of revelation, or to look closely into its nature 
and conditions, but a glance may properly be taken at the 
general idea of revelation as related to the exercise of reason. 


28 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


If revelation be taken not simply as a fact but also as a 
unit, then obviously the mind that accepts the fact of the 
revelation must subscribe equally to all its contents. To 
challenge or to qualify the authority of any part would at 
once involve a denial that the revelation can be taken 
strictly as a unit. 

But what is valid ground for taking an alleged revelation 
strictly as a unit? Certainly there can be no @ priori deter- 
mination of a point like this. It may, perhaps, be said that 
the supposition of anything less than complete infallibility in 
every part would open the door to questioning and incerti- 
tude, and so would be inconvenient. But it is not to be taken 
for granted that convenience is a test of reality. It has no 
proper claim to that office, unless an extravagant breadth is 
given to the term, and it is made to cover an unequivocal and 
universal demand of rational life. No religion will concede to 
a rival that its oracles can be judged by the mere convenience 
of those accepting them. Such a canon is worthless in deal- 
ing with outside parties, and is essentially too arbitrary and 
unsubstantial to control a fundamental conclusion. The provi- 
dential order of the world points to the verdict that develop- 
ment is a much higher end than convenience. Development 
of the better type, however, comes from free contact with a 
worthy content, such as is intrinsically fitted to be food for the 
higher nature, rather than from the constraint of formal 
authority. Quite too high a value is attached to convenience 
when it forecloses investigation and is made the standard for 
judging an extended array of facts. It is not and cannot be 
certain beforehand that in a vast cycle of revelations, mediated 
through human instrumentality under varying conditions, all 
parts and items are upon a precise parity as respects elevation 
above error. The general fact of a revelation, however well- 
established it may be, does not determine what traces may 
have been left upon it by the human mediums. _ So far as that 
can be determined at all, it must be by an inductive process 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 29 


which takes account of all pertinent facts, including the rela- 
tion of agreement or discrepancy between the parts. 

This line of representation would be a superfluity were it 
not for an easy-going assumption which still has some cur- 
rency. While it is commonly granted that the fact of a reve- 
lation must be established upon grounds that are satisfactory 
to reason, it is sometimes assumed that the revelation, if 
accepted at all, must forthwith be taken as a unit, and its 
whole content be placed beyond rational criticism. The as- 
sumption is arbitrary, and collapses when the false standard 
of convenience on which it depends is set aside. It is entirely 
conceivable that some of the sacred writers may have been 
more responsive to the divine message than others, and that 
in no mind beside that of Jesus Christ was a perfect vehicle 
provided for the revealing Spirit. It is not asserted here that 
such was the fact, but only that there is no summary method 
for establishing the opposite conclusion. 

The acceptance, then, of a revelation, especially of one that 
is comprehensive and manifold, cannot foreclose all judgment 
upon its contents. The office of revelation is not to confound 
and suppress reason, but rather to afford light and guidance. 
To suppress reason would be to close the door against revela- 
tion. A blank is no subject for a revelation. Only a rational 
nature, living and active, is a fit subject; and such a nature 
cannot apprehend what is contradictory to reason. To ask 
reason to contradict itself is to demand mental disruption and 
chaos, 

The prerogative of reason to pursue the path of honest 
inquiry in relation to the contents of revelation needs doubt- 
less to be exercised with much discretion. For, what reason 
really demands may be in various connections quite problem- 
atical. It is an unfounded conceit which is indulged in when 
the reason in man is taken as a fixed or full-grown entity, 
always equal to itself. While all the elements of the faculty 
were given in the original outfit of the mind, there may be 


30 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


such an increase of approved data, and such an enlargement 
of power to deal with complex data, as shall greatly extend 
the field of rational insight. What seemed impossible at one 
stage may, therefore, be approved at another. It is reasonable 
that the reason should be moderate and modest in dealing with 
an accepted revelation, or with oracles which, on the whole, 
seem to have fulfilled the function of revelation. But certainly 
it cannot be asked to hold both of two statements which, 
though each taken alone is quite possible, are seen to be con- 
tradictory to one another. No more can it be asked to assent 
to any individual statement which is distinctly contrary to 
rational insight. If aught in either line is found within the 
compass of an accredited revelation it must be regarded as 
the product of human fallibilty. To attempt to give it any 
better character would be to dishonor the author of the rev- 
elation for the sake of affirming the perfect agency of the 
instruments. 

The main points in the discussion may be included in this 
summary: (1) There is no theoretic necessity for taking rev- 
elation, or the whole body of oracles representative of a dis- 
pensation, strictly as a unit. (2) Reason is allowed to inspect 
the contents of an accredited revelation as well as to make a 
preliminary judgment on the general fact of a revelation hav- 
ing been given. (3) As reason, in this use of the term, 
denotes a faculty which is under training, and may progress to 
wider and deeper insight in relation to various problems, it 
should observe the dictates of prudence and sobriety in judg- 
ing the contents of an accredited revelation. (4) It is possi- 
ble that what is merely improbable to reason at a certain stage 
may be approved by revelation, but never can it come withip 
the province of any authority to give credit to plain contra- 
dictions or to enforce belief in that which is distinctly opposed 
to rational intuition. 

If anything needs to be added to these points, it is an 
explicit emphasis upon the truth that revelation itself may be 


PRINCIPLES OF RATIONAL CERTAINTY. 31 


a very eminent factor in the improvement of the standpoint or 
conditions of rational judgment. It was a cardinal error of 
the old deistic speculation that it put an abstraction in the 
place of man’s actual faculty, a fictitiously independent and 
complete reason in place of a growing power of rational 
insight. Once grant the fact of growth or development, and 
immediately the notion of tuition, guidance, assistance, becomes 
pertinent, — the notion that revelation may conduct to a wider 
and more certain outlook than could be obtained apart from 
its agency. 


X.— RELATION OF THE IDEA OF GOD TO RATIONAL 
CERTAINTY. 


In enumerating the conditions of rational] certainty it is not 
possible to ignore the goal and summit of all thinking, the 
idea of God, It enforces entrance by its intrinsic relation to 
the subject. 

If the idea of God is not directly needed to guarantee the 
trustworthiness of our faculties, it is indirectly required for 
that end, as alone providing an intelligible and satisfactory 
account of our faculties. Some sort of a background of the 
univers> as known in experience must be postulated. To 
postulate a background which darkens and dwarfs the deepest 
facts of the intellectual and moral life, which logically con- 
signs those facts to the mean category of illusions, is to assail 
the very foundation of rational certainty. We are left to con- 
fusion and despair in the face of so radical an incongruity. 
In order not to eliminate our standing-ground we must 
have a postulate which does not turn our mental and moral 
life into insoluble enigmas ; and that postulate —as we shall 
attempt to show presently— is alone the existence of a 
personal God. 

It may be true that we assume the trustworthiness of our 


32 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


faculties in deducing the idea of God. But it is no less true 
that the harmony of the idea with the intellectual and moral 
demands of our being rightly seconds and confirms our primi- 
tive confidence in our faculties. _To pursue this line of thought 
makes no vicious circle in reasoning. We have here simply 
an illustration of the fact that in a consistent system the 
members are mutually supporting. 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE. PERSON. 33 


CHAPTER II. 
THE EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 


I. — PROPRIETY OF INTRODUCING THE TOPIC OF THE 
DIVINE EXISTENCE AT THIS POINT. 


THE more complete view of the divine nature is properly 
postponed till the scope and authority of revelation have been 
duly considered. But as we cannot be well-prepared for the 
thought of a revelation without some conception of a revealer, 
or possible source of specific disclosures, it is appropriate to 
justify at this point the general notion of a Divine Person. 
Proof of the existence of such a person is of course in one 
sense proof of the fact of a revelation, since He can be known 
to exist only by being manifested or revealed. Manifestation, 
however, may be of different orders and degrees. On the one 
hand, the facts of common observation and experience may be 
the means of manifestation. On the other hand, the world 
with its standing arrangements may serve as the theatre, and 
the means of manifestation be a special series of events, a 
history peculiarly shaped and directed. Now it is evidently 
the normal method to begin with the order of facts which by 
hypothesis is common rather than exceptional, and then take 
the warrant which it affords for the existence of a personal 
God as a starting-point in weighing the claims of the special 
revelation. The contents of the assumed revelation may, 
doubtless, themselves attest more or less clearly the existence 
of a supreme intelligence and will, since they may convey an 
impression of superhuman wisdom and virtue. Still, it is an 


34 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


advantage in defending the claims of a specific revelation, 
or revealed system, to be able to come to the argument on a 
well-established theistic basis. 


II.— DEFINITION OF THE TERMS “PERSON”’ AND “INFINITE,” 
AND PROOF OF THE COMPATIBILITY OF PERSONALITY 
WITH INFINITUDE. 


The word ‘‘person”’ denotes a being characterized by self- 
knowledge and by self-determination or will. In the nor- 
mal personality feeling is also doubtless fundamental. By 
the term “infinite” is indicated the fact that the person here 
contemplated has no limits which are not either self-imposed or 
demanded by His perfection. 

This definition of the infinite, it is believed, will make no 
trouble for real thinking. So long as we keep out of the 
region of abstraction and direct our attention to actual being, 
we can frame no other consistent notion of the infinite. A pro- 
found reverence for etymology, it is true, may insist that the 
infinite is that which rejects all limits whatsoever. But must 
the infinite be unbounded in such sense that it shall submit 
to no barriers against self-contradiction? Is not infinitude a 
bar against finitude? Is not unmeasured power a bar against 
impotence ? Can supreme wisdom co-exist with blank ignor- 
ance? To ask such questions is to answer them. Nothing 
can be plainer than that the positing of a perfection is equiva- 
lent to the exclusion of an imperfection. Whatever has the 
perfection is shut out from the imperfection. As regards 
the item of self-limitation, that implies only that the infinite, 
forming plans in unblemished wisdom and entering upon their 
execution, may be bound by self-consistency to shape action 
in conformity with the plans. 

From this standpoint we may estimate the sagacity of those 
who deny the personality of God in the interest of His infini- 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 35 


tude. For the sake of affirming an abstract greatness, or one 
which has no definable content, they exclude such fundamental 
factors of real greatness as self-knowledge and self-determina- 
tion. They shut up God in eternal darkness, and place Him 
under the limitations of invincible ignorance, in order that they 
may set Him above all limitations. 

In this procedure, there seems to be an implicit assumption 
that only the indefinite is great ; that accordingly the infinitely 
great is only one step from the infinite void, if not identical with 
the same. A noted saying of Spinoza gives a formula for this 
assumption. It runs thus: “Omnis determinatio est negatio.”’ 
The maxim, it may be allowed, has an application. In logical 
classification we proceed from the larger to the smaller group 
by adding some new characteristic. Each addition narrows 
the circle of the objects comprehended. The determination 
is in this sense a negation. But a convenient method of regard- 
ing objects in their class relations is one thing; a standard of 
intrinsic greatness is another thing. The mere pushing out of 
a line to a wide circuit gives no true image of greatness, apart 
from a consideration of what falls within the line. Any amount 
of nothingness amounts simply to nothing. Any amount of 
inferior being amounts to less than a supremely exalted per- 
sonality, who, as possessed of a free creative will, is competent 
to produce any amount of inferior being. Deny such a will 
to the Divine Being and you make what actually exists the 
measure of His ability to produce. As being under absolute 
necessity, He cannot produce either more or less than He does. 
The impersonal God has no power to add a single star to the 
_ number which at any time brightens the sky. The personal 
God, on the other hand, may be conceived as able, by virtue 
of a free creative will, to transcend the existing order and to 
bring in any number of new worlds or world-systems. Plainly 
we are off the track of rational procedure when we attempt to 
construe greatness in a vague extensive sense. Mere bulk is 
a lower category than amount of actual and possible agency. 


36 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


Being is great by quality, infinitely great as being above all 
qualitative improvement. To honor, then, to the utmost the 
thought of God, we must predicate of Him the loftiest and 
most glorious attributes. To leave out intelligence and will 
makes a fatal deficit. As well blot out sun, moon, and stars, 
in order to enlarge one’s notion of the encompassing heaven, 
as to deny to God, in the name of His infinitude, the lofty 
predicates of personality. 

An objection against the personality of the infinite has been 
found in the supposed requirements of self-consciousness. The 
consciousness of self, it is claimed, springs out of the opposi- 
tion of subject and object. Self is revealed only in reaction 
against a not-self. Therefore, since the infinite has no rival 
to its eternal being, no object set over against itself, it has 
no means of self-consciousness, and so lacks the distinctive 
feature of personality. 

An assumption of the essential passivity of mind lurks in 
this objection. It seems to be imagined that there can be no 
positive mental states save as they are wrought by external 
agency, no mental activities save in response to a stimulus 
from without. For, if the states or activities be assumed, 
there is evidently no lack of an object of cognition (or of a 
positive subject-matter of consciousness). The only kind of 
object which can ever be immediately present to a conscious- 
ness like ours is already present. The states and activities 
are material for self-knowledge. They are at once a ground 
for the immediate feeling of self and for a reflective considera- 
tion of self. What, then, it must be asked, is the warrant for 
affirming the essential passivity of mind? No analysis of ex- 
perience can discover that this is the character even of finite 
mind. On the contrary, it is the consciousness of subjective 
energy which is the principal means of interpreting to us 
the notion of force generally. Doubtless the undeveloped or. 
feebly developed mind is largely dominated by the impressions 
which come from the physical environment. But an experi- 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 37 


ence which is explained by special conditions does not declare 
the essential nature of mind. If it be true that the infant is 
born a slave of physical nature, it is also true that he may 
advance toa relative lordship. Not a few hints are given us in 
the human range that mind is intrinsically the power of initia- 
tion, the original spring of energy. Accordingly it is no specu- 
lative rashness to conceive that the infinite mind, notwithstand- 
ing the absence of external stimulus, may be alive, energetic, 
inclusive of all loftiest feelings and purposes, and thus have 
abundant means of self-consciousness. Indeed, there is good 
reason for concluding with Lotze that complete self-conscious- 
ness, or personality in the highest sense, can be predicated of 
the infinite alone. A being in order to give a full account 
of itself should comprehend fully its laws and essential rela- 
tions. But the finite spirit cannot do this. It is under laws 
which are imposed from a higher source, and stands in relations 
which are not of its own choosing. Being thus implicated with 
that which is beyond itself, and which it did not originate, it 
has no security of being able to explore its own nature and 
significance to the utmost. The explanation of itself lies in 
part beyond the sphere of experience, beyond the province 
over which it has mastery. But the infinite having naught 
back of itself, and being conditioned by nothing which is not 
the product of its own volition or the implication of its own 
perfection, has to wrest no secret from a foreign field in order 
to reach self-understanding, and so may be completely lumin- 
ous to itself.” 


1 See Mikrokosmos, Buch ix, Kap. iv. The following from Bowne sets the 
main truths respecting self-consciousness in a clear light. ‘ There are two factors 
in human self-knowledge: (1) a direct feeling of self; and (2) a conception of 
self or of the powers and properties of self. This conception of self is developed, 
but the feeling of self is present from the beginning. The child has little or no 
conception of itself, but it has the liveliest experience of itself. This experience 
of self is quite independent of all antithesis of subject and object, and is underived. 
But allowing all that can be claimed for the development of our self-consciousness, 
it does not lie in the notion of self-consciousness that it must be developed. An 

4 


38 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


IJI.— CoMPARATIVE VIEW OF ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 


We conclude then that we are not debarred from the theis- 
tic argument by a speculative foreclosure, since personality is 
not found contradictory of infinitude when the latter term 
is understood in a legitimate sense. In taking up that argu- 
. ment it will be best to scan in the first place the leading anti- 
theistic theories, since an exposure of their shortcomings will 
provide a suitable ground for estimating the positive supports 
of theistic faith. 

As deism accepts the existence of a personal God, and only 
disputes or greatly limits His present agency in the world, it 
need not be noticed in the present connection. A formal con- 
sideration of agnosticism may also be waived. This will be 
the more appropriate since the professed agnostic hardly ever 
holds consistently to the neutral position on the question of 
the divine existence, but almost invariably insinuates a materi- 
alistic or pantheistic conception. His ostensible position will 
be virtually passed upon by the positive theistic argument, as 
will also the creed of formal atheism. The anti-theistic theo- 
ries which call for our attention are accordingly materialism 
and pantheism. 

At the first look these two theories appear widely contrasted. 
Materialism regards matter as filling out the whole category of 
being, so that mind, if not a definite quantum of matter, is only 
an effect or modification of matter. Pantheism, on the other 
hand, makes both mind and matter manifestations of a unitary 
being. Instead of regarding mind as secondary and resultant, 
it may make it coordinate with matter as was done by Spinoza, 


eternal self is metaphysically as possible as an eternal not-self. To say that 
because our self-consciousness is developed all self-consciousness must be de- 
veloped, is just as rational as to say that all being must have a beginning because 
we have. It is to transfer to the independent all the limitations of the finite, 
which is the very thing the pantheist claims to abhor.” (Studies in Theism, 


P- 274.) 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 39 


wr exalt it to a distinct primacy as was done by Fichte and also 
by Hegel. Materialism commonly finds God nowhere. Pan- 
theism assumes to discover Him in all things. 

In spite of this contrast, however, materialism and the 
typical Occidental pantheism are closely allied. The idea of 
creation is foreign to both. In both alike all change is im- 
puted to necessitated evolution. If to the materialist the world 
is all, it is scarcely less to the pantheist, since he acknowl- 
edges no extra-mundane Deity, affirms God only as the inner 
life of the world, and allows to Him no further self-knowledge 
than is contained in the fragmentary reflection of Himself 
in finite consciousness. Indeed, when materialism becomes 
mystical and begins to insinuate that matter is something 
more than atoms operating under mechanical laws, that it is 
the seat of potencies which the ordinary terminology of physics 
is utterly unable to describe, it approximates very closely 
to pantheism. In the recent history of thought a material- 
istic pantheism, or pantheistic materialism, has not been an 
unknown product. 


I1V.— Economy oF ASSUMPTIONS SHOWN NOT TO BE CHAR- 
ACTERISTIC OF ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 


As regards either materialism or pantheism there is small 
occasion for glorying in the fewness of the assumptions 
in which refuge must be taken. The materialist can make 
nothing of his atoms without motion. He must assume 
therefore the eternity of motion, or else predicate an abso- 
lute beginning of the same. Either conclusion is entirely be- 
yond the range of experience, a pure assumption. Given a mul- 
titude of moving atoms, and there is not the slightest pledge 
that an orderly universe will result. Chaos rather than 
cosmos will be the outcome, unless the atoms are endowed 
with tendencies to combine in particular ways. ‘Tacitly, 


40 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


if not in outspoken terms, vast account must be made of 
tendencies which no analysis of matter has discovered, and 
the reality of which therefore has no guarantee outside of the 
demands of materialistic speculation. Still further, the fact 
of life has to be explained. Either life must have been eter- 
nal, or it must have sprung from not-living matter. If the 
former alternative is taken, the question arises as to how life 
was able to survive the intense heat of the primitive nebula ; 
or, in case it is preferred to dispense with the nebular hypoth- 
esis, an account is demanded of the way in which the atoms 
became aggregated into world systems. If the second alter- 
native be chosen, then a spontaneous generation must be 
assumed, which no observation has ever shown to be within 
the capacity of physical nature. 

As for the pantheist, the impersonal, unconscious infinite 
with which he starts, is scarcely more adequate to explain 
the sum of reality than the primitive atoms of the materialist, 
and it is his custom accordingly to add in like manner a 
liberal supply of assumptions. Spinoza imports into his one 
infinite substance the dual characteristics of thought and 
extension, not by any process of deduction, but by sheer affir- 
mation ; and he also leaves entirely unexplained the correspon- 
dence between the thought series and the extension series, 
since he assumes that there is no interaction between them. 
Hegel makes the sweeping assumption that thought and be- 
ing are identical, and that the logical evolution of thought 
mirrors the whole process of the unfoldment of the universe. 
Spencer, whose system is a species of materialistic pantheism,! 
attempts to get a starting-point for the evolution of the abso- 
lute by postulating the instability of the homogeneous — a 
speculative expedient which looks very much like founding 
difference upon blank identity. 

Further illustration would be gratuitous. The hypothesis” 





ae 


1 Tt has been characterized as an attempt to engraft Pantheism upon Positivism. 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 41 


of an eternal self-conscious mind is quite as conceivable as 
the speculative items which must be assumed in these sys- 
tems. Unless, therefore, the one or the other shows a supe- 
rior congruity with important facts and interests, there is no 
reason for preferring it to the theistic theory, while an inferi- 
ority or relative failure in this respect would be adequate 
ground for its rejection. 


V. — CrITIcISsM OF MATERIALISM. 


A test of the sort just indicated is exceedingly trying to 
materialism. In the first place, it cannot construe the facts 
of cognition. According to a consistent materialism the 
knowing subject is simply a physical organism, an aggregation 
of atoms or material particles, any one of which is but a tran- 
sient constituent. Since the organism is wholly composed 
of material particles, any conceivable change within it must 
be a change of these particles. But what other change can 
materialistic science, so long as it keeps to terms in the slight- 
est degree intelligible to itself, specify for the particles, than 
one of motion or aggregation! (or something equally remote 
from all suggestion of mental facts)? A hasty imagination 
may indeed bring up the instance of the smitten chord, and 
suggest that as the resulting music is unlike the chord, so 
the result of a movement in the brain may be unlike the 
brain or any of its modifications that can be inspected. The 
supposed analogy, however, is entirely at fault. The smitten 
chord produces only vibrations in a material medium, and no 


1 Much scientific authority could be cited against the need of adding any 
qualifying clause. Thus Romanes says: “It is no longer a matter of keen-sighted 
speculation, but a matter of carefully demonstrated fact, that all our knowledge of 
the external world is nothing more than a knowledge of motion. For all the 
forms of energy have now been proved to be but modes of motion.” (Mind, 
Motion and Monism, pp. 2, 3.) 


42 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


music is found until we pass out of that which can be de- 
scribed in terms of matter, and come to that which can be 
described only in terms of consciousness. No other analogy 
is likely to render any better service. Keeping to terms in- 
telligible to itself, materialistic science can predicate for the 
material particles of an organism no change but one of mo- 
tion and aggregation. It follows then that if thoughts and 
feelings are to be ascribed to the material organism they must, 
in so far as they are accounted for at all, be identified with 
such realities as motions and aggregations of material parti- 
cles. This means not merely that the motions and aggrega- 
tions may serve as symbols of thoughts and feelings, for sym- 
bols have no use apart from an interpreter, who, by hypothesis, 
is not present ; it means that the thoughts and feelings are 
strictly identical with motions and aggregations. In other 
words, the proper mental phenomena are denied, and that 
which has no perceived or thinkable resemblance to them is 
put in their place.) If not willing to accept this outcome the 
materialist must grant that, on his theory, mental phenomena 
appear magical and unaccountable. 

With this difficulty is conjoined another which presents 
an equal challenge to materialistic theory. It was noticed in 
the preceding chapter that there must be a unitary subject 
of the mental life, and that the sensational psychology, as 
neglecting to provide such a subject, is condemned to failure. 
Now, materialism in its psychological theory is a branch of 
sensationalism, and shares in all the shortcomings of that 
system. It has no unitary subject. The physical organism 
is an aggregate of parts. The state of one atom may affect that 
of another, but it can never be identical therewith. A number 
of atoms or ultimate particles may have similar states, and in 
a loose rhetorical fashion these may be spoken of as making a 
common state; but in strictness, the states must be as many 


1 On the absurdity of identifying thought with a movement of brain-substance, 
see Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 82, 83. 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 43 


as the atoms, otherwise we shall have individual particles wnich 
are without states, or states which are states of nothing. The 
separability of the atoms, the fact that they are continually 
passing out of the organism, also emphasizes the impossibility 
of finding in it the unitary subject required by the mental life. 
This irreducible plurality of shifting units can never be made 
to explain the unity of consciousness which conditions rational 
experience, or be harmonized with the memory which unites 
the past and the present.! 

In its mystical phase, materialism may perhaps disguise in 
a measure these difficulties, but it cannot escape them with- 
out denying itself. Suppose matter is described as a double- 
faced reality, of which the inner face is manifested in mental 
phenomena; the question arises at once as to the relation 
between the two faces. If it be assumed that the inner is not 
determined by the outer, then the presence of the mental phe- 
nomena is no certain ground for inferring an outer reality in 
correspondence therewith, and the way is opened to doubt the 
existence of that reality, in other words, to surrender materi- 
alism in favor of idealism. If, on the other hand, the inner 
face is regarded as being, in its whole extent, determined by 
the outer face, that is, a resultant of purely physical causes, 
such as nerve vibrations, we come back, in effect, to the ordin- 


1 No serious account needs to be made of the supposition of a central atom in 
the brain which fills the place of a unitary subject, inasmuch as all other atoms 
in the brain communicate to it the effects made upon them severally. Physiology 
knows nothing about any such extraordinary atom. On the contrary it pronounces 
it mythical, and favors the conclusion that any very minute portion of the brain 
could be detached without destroying the mental life of the subject. ‘ There is no 
cell,” says William James, “or group of cells in the brain of such anatomical or 
functional preéminence as to appear to be the keystone or centre of gravity of the 
whole system.” (Principles of Psychology, 1, 180.) “It is worthy of note,” 
remarks Paulsen, “that the older attempts to find a point in the brain, the destruc- 
tion of which would result in immediate death, have all proved futile. The gan- 
glion of life assumed by Flourens does not exist; the patient survives the destruc- 
tion of any portion of his brain, if it is not too extensive.” (Introduction to 
Philosophy, p. 137.) 


44 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


ary materialistic theory and encounter all the difficulties which 
belong to that theory. Aside from furnishing a pretty phrase, 
the supposed “inner face of matter’’ is found to render very 
scant service. It affords no explanation of psychological facts, 
except as it is elevated to the rank of a distinct subject; and 
in proportion as this result is approximated there is a virtual 
abandonment of materialism. 

The failure of materialism to give any intelligible account 
of cognition is aggravated by its inherent fatalism. Where all 
thinking and all action are under the bonds of an inexorable 
necessity, it is not only difficult to distinguish between the 
normal and the abnormal, but to conceive that there is any 
valid distinction between them. If we suppose a divine mind 
as the standard of truth, and free beings, who may make a 
better or worse use of their opportunity, to find out what 
accords with the supreme reason, there is at least an intelli- 
gible ground of distinction between truth and error, whatever 
difficulty there may be in passing judgment upon this or that 
item of opinion or belief. In this case, man’s fallibility in no 
wise denies that there is an unchanging standard of truth. 
But where the supreme power enforces with invincible neces- 
sity contradictory opinions and beliefs, what ground is there for 
conceiving any real standard? If matter acting under inva- 
riable laws is the ultimate entity, the determining power back 
of all events, then the contradictions in human opinion are the 
contradictions of the supreme power itself. Being thus in 
the habit of contradicting itself, when shall it be trusted? 
Shall the democratic principle of the right of the majority to 
rule determine whether confidence shall be given? This would 
be a poor makeshift, since there is no intrinsic certainty that 
a majority is in the right, or that the majority of to-day will 
not be the minority of to-morrow. Shall it be argued that 
opinions which persist must be in harmony with the nature of 
things, since they can persist only by ministering to the sur- 
vival of those who entertain them, and this survival supposes 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 45 


the harmony in question? This would be a covert treason 
against the genuine materialistic theory, which makes all men- 
tal facts the purely determined, and allows them no power of 
reaction whatever upon their physical antecedents. Being thus 
unable to reach or to modify the physical causes, they are by 
hypothesis perfectly impotent to have any effect upon the sur- 
vival of their subjects. The persistence of opinions, therefore, 
affords, from this point of view, no ground of inference respect- 
ing their truth or error. In short, a supreme power, which 
proves by the fact of necessitating contradictory opinions its 
capability of enforcing error —if perchance there is any truth 
or error — affords no secure pledge that it will not regularly 
necessitate erroneous thinking in this or that line. 

In a more direct view, materialistic fatalism is seen to work 
for mental disruption. It is not merely a humiliation for men 
to reckon themselves automata, it is practically an impossibil- 
ity. No doubt, under the pressure of a speculative exigency 
a man will sign away his title to all free agency ; but before 
the ink is dry the inalienable feeling of freedom within will 
begin its protest against the assignment. At most, the feel- 
ing can be wounded and weakened by the speculative denial 
of its legitimacy ; it cannot be eliminated so long as any vital- 
ity remains in the human spirit. Materialistic fatalism, there- 
fore, makes a demand for self-contradiction. It works for 
inward schism, assailing that which is felt to be most essential 
to personal dignity and worth. The undermining of intel- 
fectual confidence, inward confusion, despair of the truth, is its 
natural result, so far as it is seriously accepted. 

In denying freedom materialism also cancels morality. It 
may be that it leaves room for an aesthetic distinction between 
different kinds of conduct. Some necessitated actions may 
be more agreeable to contemplate than others. A deed of 
beneficence may be pronounced intrinsically fairer than a deed 
of mischief or destruction. But morality is not summed up in 
aesthetics. We apply to the field of conduct other canons 


46 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


than those by which we estimate a flower-garden. Central to 
our judgment upon ourselves and upon others are the ideas of 
merit and demerit, of innocence and guilt, of non-liability and 
responsibility. To ignore these ideas is to ignore funda- 
mental facts of moral experience and to rob morality of the 
more significant part of its content. But to rationally found 
these ideas is impossible save on the presupposition of free- 
dom. The notion of a guilty automaton or responsible mechan- 
ism may well be left to the child who, in his foolish passion, 
kicks the stone over which he has stumbled. Materialistic 
necessity abolishes all distinction between merit and demerit, 
and renders the use of the terms inept or mendacious. 

In cancelling the proper subject of morality materialism 
strikes at the efficacy of moral motive. It is not a matter of 
practical indifference what views are taken of human nature 
and destiny. A low view tends in the long run to lessen the 
incentives to noble conduct. Human personality must be 
seen to be sacred, in order to be secure of being treated as 
sacred. Hewho educates himself into the conviction that his 
fellow-men are only curious automata is, other things being 
equal, in a poor condition to respect their interests as com- 
pared with the one who sees in them the actual or possible 
children of a heavenly King and heirs of immortal life. 

Finally, materialism tends to impoverish the human spirit 
by denying the proper object of worship. It has no lofty ideal 
to summon forth reverence, adoration, and affection. The 
materialist, it 1s true, may attempt to habilitate nature as a 
suitable deity, following the example of Strauss, who in his 
later days concluded that the cosmos should be made the 
object of worship. But altars reared to such a deity are 
likely to be scantily furnished with incense. The worshipper, 
reminding himself that the highest heaven of matter has 
nothing intrinsically better than the ground upon which he 
treads, and that nature has no hearing whatever for his praises 
or petitions, will naturally be tempted to neglect his devotions. 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 47 


He can have no such perennial incentive to pour out his heart 
in worship as comes from the thought of the God pictured 
by psalmist, prophet, and Messiah, — the living God, holy, 
exalted, and responsive, who grants the light of His counte- 
nance to those who seek to know and to do His will. 

What was said of materialism in its mystical phase may be 
regarded as having a certain application to the theory which 
is styled sonism. This term has indeed a varied use. An 
idealistic pantheism may claim that it describes very appro- 
priately its own standpoint. Even a stanch theism, with its 
insistence upon the thoroughgoing and constant dependence 
of all finite things upon a supreme agent, may be credited with 
a species of monistic doctrine. But while the name of monism 
has no exclusive association with materialism, it is not infre- 
quently used to cover views which are justly suspected of being 
strongly allied with materialism. 

In its least credible form monism identifies the physical and 
the mental. This seems to have been done by Romanes in 
the following attempted illustration of the way to overcome 
the duality of mind and matter, of subject and object. “We 
have only,” he says, ‘to suppose that the antithesis between 
mind and motion — subject and object — is itself phenomenal 
or apparent : not absolute or real. We have only to suppose 
that the seeming duality is relative to our modes of apprehen- 
sion; and, therefore, that any change taking place in the 
mind, and any corresponding change taking place in the brain, 
are really not two changes but one change. When a violin is 
played upon we have a musical sound, and at the same time 
we see a vibration of the strings. Relatively to our conscious- 
ness, therefore, we have two sets of changes, which appear to 
be very different in kind; yet we know that in an absolute 
sense they are one and the same; we know that the diversity 
in consciousness is created only by the difference in the modes 
of our perceiving the same event — whether we see or whether 
we hear the vibration of the strings. Similarly, we may sup- 


45 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


pose a vibration of nerve-strings and a process of thought are 
really one and the same event, which is dual or diverse only 
in relation to our modes of perceiving it.” ! 

The trouble with this illustration is that, so far as it is 
intelligible, it does not illustrate. The intelligible notion of 
the facts cited is that the same exterior cause, operating upon 
the subject through the medium of two different sense-organs, 
produces two different orders of nerve vibrations, which in 
the interpretation of the subject become the seen and the 
heard respectively. The method of the subject’s interpre- 
tation is of course a mystery ; but that the cognition should 
be dual is intelligible enough, seeing that two distinct orders 
of events are supposed to be furnished, namely, the two or- 
ders of nerve vibrations. There is no identification here of one 
thing with another. The illustration accordingly fails, as not 
affording a parallel case. The monistic philosopher should 
have shown that the vibration itself of the musical string is at 
the same time something entirely different —- say the round- 
ness of a kettle, the transparency of glass, the flight of a bird, 
or the configuration of a leaf—-in order to have given any 
illustration of a possible identification of a movement of brain 
substance with a mental fact. That an event under certain 
conditions should be the source or cause of two others, and 
that these should give rise to a dual perception in a knowing 
subject is easy enough to understand. What we want, in 
order to make credible the monistic theory, as defined here by 
Romanes, is not an illustration of how one event or change 
may be the cause of two others, but how the given event or 
change can rationally be counted identical with something as 
thoroughly different to our mental view as can be conceived. 
In spite of the proffered illustration, it seems to us that we 


i Mind, Motion, and Monism, pp. 27, 28. It should be observed that we are 
concerned here only with the success of the illustration offered in behalf of the 
given statement of the monistic theory. The question whether the distinguished 
writer remained consistently by this statement lies outside of our consideration. 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 49 


should need two minds working in indescribably different ways 
in order to be able to contemplate one and the same event as 
a nerve vibration and a thought. 

More commonly, monism avoids an unintelligible identifica- 
tion of the physical and the mental, and contents itself with 
asserting that both are phenomenal, different forms of mani- 
festation of fundamental being. In this case we have repeated 
the same difficulties as were noted respecting the attainment 
of a consistent view of the interrelation of the two faces of 
the double-faced matter considered above. Moreover, it is to 
be remembered that phenomena cannot well be phenomena 
simply to themselves. They are such only to a thinking sub- 
ject. Appearances without any subject to appear to are as 
good as iron made of wood, Nor will it do to posit simply an 
infinite subject. We can give no proper account of our own 
thoughts save as we regard them as the acts of thinking sub- 
jects. The speculator who assumes to divorce thought from 
a subject, or real self, sooner or later hypostasizes thought 
itself, or turns it into a real subject. As was illustrated in 
the case of Herbert Spencer, the expelled ego is bound to get 
back, and to receive a surreptitious if not an open acknowl. 
edgment. It is only an artificial alienation from its own point 
of view, an unnatural transference of itself to an objective 
range, which permits the thinking subject to question its own 
substantial agency and to rate itself alongside the physical as 
simply phenomenal.! 

On the general merits of the monistic theory the following 
from Professor Ladd is pertinent : “ Monism is the most waste- 
ful possible form of metaphysical theory for the relation 
between body and mind. Body we know and mind we know ; 
and if we are compelled to assume any real being to furnish a 
metaphysical ground for the phenomena, then we can afford 
one kind of being for each kind of phenomena, But this third 


1 See Bowne, Metaphysics, revised edition, pp. 314 ff. 


50 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


unknown and unknowable sort of being, what does 7¢ here? 
If the phenomena are not so incomparable that they cannot 
properly be referred to one reality as its manifestation, then 
our choice lies between the so-called body and the so-called 
mind ; and thus materialism and spiritualism must fight it out 
between themselves. Monism has no standing as a third 
metaphysical theory. But if the incomparable character of 
the two sets of phenomena forbids either the materialistic or 
the spiritualistic hypothesis, then the dualistic hypothesis 
would seem for the time to hold the field. Monism again, 
however, has then no ratson d’étre as a rival metaphysical 
theory.” ! 


VI.— CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM. 


The objections to materialism are in large part valid 
against pantheism. The psychology of the latter may not 
be cumbered with all the difficulties which burden the former. 
But it is vitiated by the same unmitigated necessitarianism. 
Spinoza was outspoken in the denial that there is any real 
freedom or self-determination in the universe. Herein he 
voiced the customary thought of strict pantheists. It is 
contrary to their fundamental interest to admit the fact of 
freedom. They cannot concede it to the infinite, for they 
deny its personality. They cannot concede it to finite spirits, 
for unity of being is their shibboleth. To make finite spirits 
anything more than the modes of the activity of the infinite, 
to grant them such independence as is implied in a power of 
self-determination, would threaten to cancel strict unity, and 
to replace the one unfolding infinite with an irreducible aggre- 
gate. A necessitated evolution is therefore as characteristic 
of pantheism as of materialism. In its theory of cognition 


1 Philosophy of Mind, pp. 345, 346. 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. SI 


and in its ethics it is subject to all the embarrassments which 
are properly associated with materialistic fatalism. 

In so far as it emphasizes the divine immanence, pantheism 
promises a satisfaction to religious needs. Its service in this 
direction, however, is mostly illusory. The thought that God 
is in all things becomes barren of religious incentive and 
consolation when it is remembered that this presence is only 
the presence of impersonal power and affords no possible 
ground of real fellowship. As has been aptly remarked by 
Flint: ‘‘If the God who is in the sunbeam can only be 
present as its light and heat, the sunbeam without God must 
be equivalent to the sunbeam with God. If He is even only 
so present in ourselves that there is no distinction between 
Him and us, between His power and our power, His pres- 
ence with us is not distinguishable from His absence from us. 
Another sort of presence is needed before the soul can be 
satisfied,—the presence of one spirit with another spirit.’”! 

In another respect also pantheism is adverse to religion. 
It degrades the object of worship It brings God under the 
limitations of a mundane process, ever going on, but never 
completed. It makes Him as truly identified with the evil 
and the vile in the universe as with the good and the noble. 
It places Him in a very important respect below the plane of 
His creatures, since it represents Him as never able to attain 
to any proper self-knowledge. 

That the worshipper should thus have the advantage over 
the worshipped certainly makes a stumbling-block for the relig- 
ious feelings. It is likewise somewhat of a riddle for the 





1 Anti-Theistic Theories, pp. 385-386. Professor Howison enforces a like 
consideration, when, after granting to the mystics the merit of bringing God near 
to us, he adds: “ But nearness may become foo near. When it is made to mean 
absolute identity, then all the worth of true nearness is gone, — the openness of 
access, the freedom of converse, the joy of true reciprocity. These precious 
things all draw their meaning from the distinct reality of ourselves and Him who 
is really other than we.” (The Conception of God. By Royce, Le Conte, 
Howison, and Mezes, p. 112.) 


52 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


understanding. To derive the superior from the inferior, the 
knowing from the unconscious, resembles too closely the evo- 
lution of something out of nothing. In view of the necessities 
of his own system the pantheist would do well to repress his 
abhorrence of the notion of creation. That an infinite person 
should produce that which is within or beneath the plane of his 
own attributes is quite as conceivable, to say the least, as that 
an impersonal power should transcend its own attributes by 
producing self-conscious beings. 

Doubtless in pantheistic thinking the stress may be vari- 
ously located. One form. emphasizes the notion that God 
is simply the immanent ground of the world. In another 
form the stress is upon the sole reality of God as against 
the world. This acosmistic pantheism might concede to 
God a kind of conscious selfhood, but it provides no real 
standing-ground for men as moral and religious personalities, 
since it requires them to reckon their individual being as but 
part and parcel of a sphere of illusion. 


VII. — CoNSIDERATION OF THE EXTENT TO WHICH THEISTIC 
FairH DEPENDS UPON FORMAL ARGUMENTATION. 


As we come to the positive theistic argument, it will not be 
amiss to guard against certain errors respecting its function. 
It would be rating the practical worth of the argument much 
too high to suppose that it affords the whole ground or incen- 
tive to theistic belief. Constitutional impulse is prior to syllo- 
gisms. The needs of the emotional, the zsthetic, and the 
moral nature stimulate to thought, and unite with intellectual 
needs to beget and to keep alive the idea of a supernatural and 
overruling power. The history of the race pays too large 
tribute to the force, persistency, and universality of this idea 
to allow the supposition of its adventitious origin. In one form 
or another it seems to be the possession of every tribe of men 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. $3 


on the face of the earth. Supposed instances of its absence 
have repeatedly failed to endure close scrutiny. It has been 
found that the religion of the savage has been disguised by 
the poverty and strangeness of his dialect, or hidden by his 
suspicion and reticence. As has been remarked by an investi- 
gator of the subject, “Even with much time, and care, and 
knowledge of language, it is not always easy to elicit from 
savages the details of their theology. They try to hide from 
the prying and contemptuous foreigner their worship of gods, 
who seem to shrink, like their worshippers, before the white 
man and his mightier Deity.” 1 But even if a genuine instance 
of the complete lack of religion should be found among deeply 
debased men, it would prove little or nothing against the con- 
stitutional basis of the religious impulse. As springing from 
an abnormal degradation, a sinking below the plane of true 
manhood, it would not be an index of man’s real nature any 
more than an instance of complete apathy towards the beauti- 
ful would be such an index. The witness of history, therefore, 
is substantially unqualified as to man’s native religiousness, or 
bent to recognize a supernatural power. A lively impression 
of natural objects has doubtless had much to do with shaping 
the specific direction of this bent. But natural objects would 
have remained simply objects of sense, had it not been for the 
working of religious needs and impulses. Only the powerful 
stimulus coming from this source could create and sustain the 
disposition to translate objects of sense into symbols and 
vehicles of the supernatural. Possibly, as has been alleged, 
dreams and apparitions may have had something to do in foster- 
ing belief in spirits. This belief, however, would never have 
been the basis for a persistent conviction of vital connection 
with and obligation toward an intangible power, but for needs 
and tendencies imbedded in the nature of men. The particu- 
lar direction of a current is one thing; the perennial source 
Te 


1K. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. 382. 


$4 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


of the current is quite another thing. The manifestation of 
religion may have been shaped by various causes. The power 
urging to manifestation, so universally and persistently, cannot 
reasonably be regarded as anything less than inborn needs and 
tendencies of the human spirit. The function of formal argu- 
mentation, therefore, can only be supplementary. The basis 
of theistic faith is always at hand before philosophy or theol- 
ogy begins to set its proofs in order. 

It would also be an overvaluation of theistic argumentation 
to suppose that it is competent, in the strict sense of the term, 
to demonstrate the existence of a divine person. Demonstra- 
tion proper belongs to the sphere of ideal quantities and 
relations, where the data are thus and so by hypothesis, 
and no account needs to be taken of any uncertainties and 
imperfections of observation or experience. It cannot, there- 
fore, apply to the sphere of objective reality. In this domain 
an overwhelming preponderance of grounds in favor of a par- 
ticular conclusion is the most that can be attained. This 
suffices for practical needs, and speculation becomes intem- 
perate when it asks for more, whether in physical science or 
in theology. 

On the other side, well-ordered proofs of the divine exis- 
tence are not to be disparaged as illegitimate or useless. 
Though faith may not have been wholly or mainly indebted 
to them for its origin, it may be confirmed by them and put in 
position to withstand the attacks of a subtle scepticism. More- 
over, faith in its more spontaneous forms is not well-guarded 
against aberrations. A vivid conviction of the reality of the 
supernatural does not necessarily imply an unblemished or ade- 
quate view of the character of the supernatural. That is a 
subject which calls for the critical use of reason. No one 
would think of denying this in the face of the vast crowd of 
misconceptions which have shadowed and mutilated man’s 
thought of God. But a critical use of reason to determine 
the nature of God implies logically a critical canvassing, in 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON, 55 


large part, of the grounds which legitimate belief in His exis- 
tence. No strict line of division can be drawn between the 
two fields. That which truly reveals to reason the existence 
of God must at the same time be a disclosure in some degree 
of His attributes. So long, then, as one allows the propriety of 
using reason to clarify the vision of the divine attributes, he 
contends for little else than a point of arrangement and nomen- 
clature when he would rule out proofs of the divine existence 
as needless or impertinent. 


VIII. — Tue CosmMoLocicaL ARGUMENT. 


Among the standard arguments for the divine existence, 
the cosmological comes first in the natural order. If it does 
not reach the goal of proof, it is still very serviceable in pro- 
viding a suitable basis for the completing arguments. 

In the cosmological argument the world is regarded in its 
general aspect as a theatre of contingent existence. It is 
assumed as a self-evident truth, that things which had a begin- 
ing must have been caused. The process of the argument, as 
it is usually put, is to go back from the beginnings or changes 
in the world to that by which they must be supposed to have 
been originated. 

It is commonly agreed that the world, so far as it comes 
within the sphere of observation, contains indubitable marks 
of being an effect or sum of effects. The advance of science 
continually emphasizes the fact that everything visible and 
tangible has had a history. The primitive or ultimate is 
nowhere discoverable. Rocks, mountains, and continents are 
found to catalogue innumerable changes, and the globe itself 
seems to have scarcely more claim to the attributes of eternity 
and unchangeability than the gourd of Jonah, which grew up 
in a night and withered in a day. Now the mind cannot rest 
upon universal contingency. Tracing back the chain of causa- 


56 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


tion from one link to another it must sooner or later ask for 
an ultimate ground or cause. If it be said that it is not author- 
ized to make this demand, and should content itself with the 
supposition of an endless chain of causes, the reply is that 
the mind does not and cannot content itself with that supposi- 
tion. By virtue of its constitution it rejects an everlasting 
interrogation as to what next, while tracing back the depen- 
dent. It is forced to believe that the efficiency which runs 
down through a series of causes could not have come from 
nowhere and nothing. To impute self-sufficiency to the series, 
while each of the members is confessedly dependent, is seen 
to be an implicit denial of the principle of causality. The 
mind, therefore, in fulfillment of a rational demand, springs to 
the thought of a real source of efficiency in a self-sufficient 
being or first cause. 

But, it may be inquired, cannot the world itself, in its 
totality, be taken as the self-sufficient being or source of effi- 
ciency? Instead of running back the series of causes in a 
straight line, may we not suppose them to be arranged, so to 
speak, in circles? In other and less figurative words, may not 
the world be viewed as an aggregate of interacting members, 
and all the changes which take place within it be imputed to 
the mutual relations or interplay of the parts? 

Undoubtedly, the world is a system of interacting members. 
This is the common assumption underlying scientific investi- 
gation. But the very fact that the world is a system of inter- 
acting members compels us to look beyond the mere sum of 
the parts and to seek for an adequate bond of unity. Each 
part is conditioned by its relation to the rest. Independence 
or self-sufficiency is not found in any part. Therefore it is 
not found in any number of parts, since the mere addition 
of the dependent cannot bring about the independent. Con- 
sequently it is not found in the sum of the parts. In truth, 
this sum is only a mental representation and can have no effi- 
ciency whatever. Starting with the notion of interacting or 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 57 


dependent members, we cannot reach a satisfactory view of 
unity, unless we resort to a completing notion, and assume that 
back of the members there is a unitary being which coérdi- 
nates them, and is the independent ground of their depen- 
dent existence. ‘An interacting many,’’ says Bowne, “can- 
not exist without a codrdinating one. The interaction of our 
thoughts and other mental states is possible only through the 
unity of a basal reality which brings them together in the unity 
of one consciousness. So the interactions of the universe are 
possible only through the unity of a basal reality which brings 
them together in its one immanent omnipresence.” ! 

Thus, as the chain of causes required for its interpretation 
the notion of a first cause, so the thought of a world-system 
requires for its completion the predication of a unitary ground 
of the world. 

The unitary power which sways the components of the 
world, so as to form them into one great system, may ration- 
ally be regarded as the source of their being, as well as of 
their relations. The relations of the components are con- 
ditioned on their qualities. Consequently, no power save 
that which ordains the qualities can have full sovereignty 
over the relations. But ordaining the qualities of the com- 
ponents means nothing less than originating their being. 
Indeed, to predicate any sovereignty at all over the indepen- 
dent seems to be a contradiction in terms. If we start with 
independent being we can never find any speculative warrant 
for regarding it as otherwise than independent, or above all 
necessitated relations. In any case, we are authorized by 
the law of parsimony to reject a needless duality. In the 
absence of a positive disproof of the origination of the mate- 
rial elements of the world, it would be a trespass against the 
philosophical demand for unity to assume for them an unde- 
rived being. 


1 Metaphysics, first edition, p. 126. Compare Ulrici, Gott und die Natur, 
pp. 483-486. 


58 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


This is the outcome of the cosmological argument. As 
necessitating the assumption of an ultimate and unitary 
ground of the world it excludes polytheism in the sense of a 
plurality of independent beings. In relation to pantheism, it 
has a less decisive advantage. So far as supplying the neces- 
sary basis of the dependent members of the system is con- 
cerned, the unitary ground may be regarded as_ simply 
immanent, in other words, may be understood in a pantheistic 
sense. In order, therefore, to establish the theistic concep- 
tion it will be necessary to pass on to other arguments. 


IX.— THE TELEOLOGICAL OR DEsIGN ARGUMENT. 


The ability to select and to pursue ends can rationally be 
predicated only of an intelligent, self-conscious, and free 
being. Intelligence is required for the conception of an 
end, and as no supposable thing can be an end, save as it is 
brought into known relation to the subject which conceives 
it, self-consciousness is seen to be implicated in the notion 
of an end. Freedom is equally implicated, since anything 
can become an end only by being appropriated or chosen. 
Verbally, of course, ends or designs may be conjoined with the 
unconscious or non-intelligent. But there is no thought cor- 
responding to the verbal collocation. Unconscious design 
equals undesigned design, and unconscious intelligence equals 
non-intelligent intelligence. The adjective cancels the mean- 
ing of the noun. 

A proof then that nature reveals the choice and pursuit 
of ends would be a proof that an intelligent, self-conscious, 
and free being is back of nature. In other words, the tele- 
ological or design argument, if it is properly sustained by 
facts, takes us beyond the simple conception of a unitary 
ground of the world and enforces upon us the idea of a 
Divine Person. 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 59 


As regards the validity of the argument, spontaneous con- 
viction is certainly on its side. While nature may contain 
not a little that seems arbitrary, not to say fortuitous, it con- 
veys on the whole an overwhelming impression of regnant 
purpose. Throughout the general range of the organic world 
there is as clear an adaptation of means to ends as can be 
found in any works of human art. In the vast compass of the 
inorganic world there is an exactness of relation between part 
and part that surpasses the most delicate adjustments of human 
machinery. Mathematical relations are everywhere observed. 
The atoms attract in fixed ratios for given distances. The 
elements combine in fixed ratios. The masses are whirled 
through space in well-defined curves, and give in the aggregate 
an amazing spectacle of harmonious movement. The purpose 
of many of the particular arrangements of the inorganic world 
may not be clear. But the general outcome — the harmony, 
the regularity, and the stability——is seen to be admirably 
adapted to the needs of sensitive and rational being. In 
short, enigmatic instances might be much more numerous 
than they are, and still nature be able to afford an ample wit- 
ness to a designing intelligence. John Stuart Mill says the 
least that the facts call for when he remarks: “I think it must 
be allowed that, in the present state of our knowledge, the adap- 
tations in nature afford a large balance in favor of creation by 
intelligence.” 1 

The deification of chance by erecting it into the author of 
nature is too wild a species of idolatry to call for more than a 
word of comment. Those who urge that the world might 
have arisen by the fortuitous concourse of atoms, just as the 
Iliad might conceivably be produced by the casting forth of 
letters, need no other answer than the challenge to produce a 
page of the Iliad by throwing down handfuls of letters from 
a promiscuous heap. All eternity may safely be given them 





1 Essay on Theism. 


60 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


for a trial. To suppose that countless factors should come 
out of chaos into harmonious adjustment by mere chance, is 
the height of insane credulity. Some, who would shun an open 
appeal to chance as the great world-maker, seek to evade the 
force of the design argument by makeshifts scarcely less 
whimsical. Thus an attempt is made to crowd out the notion 
of final cause, or design, by that of efficient cause. In relation 
to the eye, for example, it is said, the proper inference is that 
it is a cause of sight, not that it was made for the purpose of 
seeing. And so of any organ, the use to which it is put is to 
be regarded simply as the result of the existence of the organ, 
and not the existence of the organ as brought about for the 
sake of the use. But this is arbitrary assertion. Theoreti- 
cally, there is no incompatibility between efficient and final 
cause. Both may be implied in any namable arrangement. 
Indeed final cause always supposes efficient causes as its 
ministers or agents. To allow that seeing is caused by the 
eye does not imply that the eye was not made for seeing, 
any more than the fact that light is caused by an ignited 
candle implies that the candle was not made for the purpose 
of giving light. The appeal, in short, to efficient as against 
final cause means simply that we must ask for no explanations, 
but turn everything over to an opaque necessity. This may 
answer for those who are ready to pronounce themselves mere 
automata; but beings who believe themselves capable of self- 
directing purpose may consistently look for marks of purposeful 
action in nature. 

Again, it is objected that design in nature is beyond the 
reach of our inspection. The most that we are competent to 
affirm is that things appear as if they were designed for 
special uses. But why is not the appearance, in the absence 
of insuperable objections, a sufficient ground for affirming 
design? There are no conclusions in natural science that can 
claim any better foundation. The best of them are inductions 
from the appearances of things. With respect to our fellow- 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 61 


men, also, we have to base our inferences upon appearances. 
We have no direct vision of design in their case, and we judge 
them to be ruled by purpose simply because they act as if they 
were. So design is properly inferred in connection with the 
manifold arrangements of nature because they appear just as 
if they had been dictated by intelligent purpose. If it be 
pleaded that our finite minds are too circumscribed to pass 
uny judgment on the designs of the Infinite, it must be an- 
swered that this anti-theological modesty is overstrained. The 
designs of the Infinite, in their full reach, are indeed too wide 
and high for our grasp. But as we are not excluded from the 
field of scientific induction because we cannot draw our scant 
line around the universe, no more are we excluded from philo- 
sophical or theological induction because we cannot perfectly 
comprehend the Infinite. If the Infinite is the cause of na- 
ture, then it is manifested to a greater or less extent in 
nature, and nothing can be more legitimate than to search 
out and to express the import of that manifestation. To 
ignore marks of purposeful action in that which is revealed, 
because much lies back of the revealed, would be like refusing 
to make use of the light of day because, forsooth, there may 
be a vast stretch of dark regions in space. 

Another expedient for evading the design argument consists 
in an appeal to law and time. It seems to be imagined that 
law, if only it is given sufficient time to work, is competent to 
build up the most complex and finished universe. But the 
obvious truth is that law is not an agent at all, and has no 
power to work out anything. The only agents are beings. 
Law is but a name for the method of their action and inter- 
action. It cannot therefore be in the least degree opposed 
to the supposition of design. The methods in question may 
themselves express design ; and also there may be reasons for 
inferring preéstablished conditions upon which the permanent 
methods of nature were superinduced. As for time, it ought 
not to be necessary to say that it has no efficiency of any sort. 


62 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


A thousand years have no more of creative potency than one 
moment. So far as efficiency is concerned, it is a case of zero 
multiplied by zero when law is conjoined with time. What is 
immanent in already existing being may be evolved according 
to law through long stretches of time. But the outcome 
cannot be made by law or time to exceed the immanent 
content. Whatever of intelligent purpose is expressed in 
the outcome must have dominated the development from the 
beginning. 

It may be granted that the supposition that organic forms 
were gradually evolved through long ages by natural selection, 
or some equivalent method, brings purely physical agents 
prominently into view as the proximate causes of special adap- 
tations in the organic world, and abridges the distinction 
between it and the inorganic world in this respect. But even 
on the ground of this supposition there is plenty of room to 
predicate design in the marvellous codrdination of physical 
causes. As Romanes has remarked: “Although this and 
that particular adjustment in nature may be seen to be proxi- 
mately due to physical causes, and although we are prepared on 
the grounds of the largest possible analogy to infer that all other 
such particular cases are likewise due to physical causes, the 
more ultimate question arises, How is it that all physical causes 
conspire, by their united action, to the production of a general 
order of nature? It is against all analogy to suppose that 
such an end as this can be accomplished by such means as 
those, in the way of mere chance or the fortuitous concourse 
of atoms. Weare led by the most fundamental dictates of our 
reason to conclude that there must be some cause for this 
codperation of causes.’’! It only needs to be added that if 


1 Reprinted from the Mineteenth Century in Thoughts on Religion, by the 
late George John Romanes, edited by Charles Gore, 1895. The reasoning of Otto 
Pfleiderer may be compared. Having premised that organisms, such as appear in 
living and conscious beings, cannot result from a mere compounding of parts, 
since the parts have their function only in subordination to the idea of the whole, 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 63 


there is any reason for not understanding this cause of causes 
in a theistic sense, it is not to be found in evolutionary 
science.! 

Once more, appeals have been made to the phenomena of 
instinct as indicating that a blindly working power may vie 
in achievement with intelligent purpose, and that accordingly 
the latter may be dispensed with in our interpretation of nature. 
But it is to be observed that instinct is discoverable only in 
connection with organisms, and that no reason is apparent for 
regarding it as anything else than a resultant of the animal con- 
stitution. That it is able to mimic so marvellously the work 
of intelligence may suggest unspeakable skill in the power 
which fashioned and adjusted the physical and psychical con- 
stitution of animals. But why should it suggest the compe- 
tency of matter, or blind force, to do the work of intelligent 
purpose? Make instinct instrumental, place intelligence back 
of it, and you have an adequate hypothesis to account for its 
working. Place the non-intelligent back of it, and you have 
an enigma. The appeal to instinct, in truth, like that to 
efficient causes, is a way of negativing inquiry after a real 
explanation, a virtual injunction to rest upon an opaque 
necessity. 

The argument in general enforces the conclusion that choice 
lies between explaining nature by reference to a supreme 
intelligence and taking refuge in an opaque necessity. If it 





he adds this weighty statement: “ Now as the world incessantly produces organic, 
sentient, and conscious life, and that not fortuitously but with a manifest tendency, a 
striving of its whole process of becoming, to this production, the cause of the world 
must be conceived as answering to this effect, not therefore as dead matter or 
blind force, but as purposeful reason, and as will realizing a purpose, or as the 
omnipotent reason which we call God.” Philosophy of Religion, III. 262, 263. 

1 Tt may be noticed that Darwin, though at one time he expressed the belief 
that natural selection excludes design, was inclined in his later years to predicate 
designed laws which govern the general disposition of things without excluding 
fortuitous elements in the details. In 1864, Professor Kélliker, an opponent of 
design, accused Darwin of having become “in the fullest sense of the word a tele- 
ologist.” 


64 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


be alleged that such an intelligence is as remote from expla- 
nation as nature on any supposition can be, we are content to 
reply that in making a supreme mind the ultimate mystery we 
effect a reasonable choice, since that, besides explaining nature, 
is alone consonant with the deepest facts and needs of the 
human spirit.! 

This thought opens the way to our next argument. But 
we must pause for a moment to notice the curious allegation 
that evidences of design are indications of the limitation of the 
Creator. Design, says John Stuart Mill, implies contrivance 
or adaptation of means to ends, and so is contradictory to the 
supposition of omnipotence, since an. omnipotent being can- 
not be in need of means for accomplishing His ends. The 
argument overlooks the consideration that in an intelligible 
system things must exist in relations, and that the means are 
very largely implied by the ends, so that the latter cannot be 
realized apart from the former. Omnipotence cannot provide 
for righteousness in the world without first creating moral 
beings, or for happiness without the presence of sensitive beings, 
or for family life without the union of the sexes, or for the 
discipline of individuals and communities without a determinate 
scheme of laws, chastisements, and rewards, or for an ideal 
kingdom without subjects well established in holy character 
by a right use of freedom. Speed or directness in reaching 
a given end is not the only thing to be regarded in a cos- 
mos. Respect must be had, also, to consistency, or the har- 
monious relation of part with part. The fact, then, that 
means are employed is no token that the end is difficult to 
the Creator. We are free to suppose that every means that 
is chosen is subordinate to the total end to be realized, so that 
that end could not be realized in its full extent without it, or 
at least without some equivalent. 





1 “Tt is always by accepting one mystery that we make many mysteries plain. 
Reason, insight, lies just here in accepting ultimates wisely.” (John Bascom, The 
New Theology, p. 87.) 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON, 65 


X. — THE ARGUMENT FROM HUMAN NATURE. 


Adaptations within the higher range of man’s being which 
look toward individual perfection, or toward the lofty ideal of a 
kingdom of righteousness, might properly be considered under 
the teleological argument. But the evidence which comes 
from this point of view may also be conveniently included in 
the argument from human nature. In the preceding discus- 
sion, especially in the criticism of anti-theistic theories, we 
have anticipated the main points of this argument, and there- 
fore need here to repeat scarcely more than a summary of 
them. 

Each cardinal distinction of human nature demands faith in 
a Divine Person, and, apart from that reference, cannot be sat- 
isfactorily explained. Is man gifted with intelligence? The 
supposition of a Divine Person points to an adequate fountain 
of that intelligence, whereas, if the fundamental reality of the 
universe is viewed as non-intelligent, no sufficient cause for 
the rise of intelligence can be conceived. Emptiness might 
as rationally be made the source of fullness as the non-intelli- 
gent of the intelligent. The psychology which attempts to 
deduce thought from jarring atoms can always be convicted of 
inconsequent reasoning. Is man endowed with an inalienable 
conviction of his freedom? Necessity cannot be supposed to 
contradict itself by creating the free. To legitimate the sense 
of freedom, and to lift it above the category of mockery and 
illusion, the thought is needed of a self-determining Being at 
the head of the universe, who both knows His own freedom 
and is able to create in its likeness. Is man conscious that 
he is a subject of moral obligation? This means that a law is 
set over his will, a categorical imperative as Kant phrased it,} 
which was not enthroned by any election of the individual, or 


1 The formula of the law as given by Kant reads thus: “So act that the maxim 
of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legis- 
lation.” (Critik der practischen Vernunft, Buch I., Theil I., § 7.) 


66 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


by any vote of his fellows, since personal inclination cannot 
abolish it, and it will not abdicate at the call of majorities. It 
is true that the detailed application of the sense of obligation 
may depend largely upon the judgment of the individual, and 
this judgment may be influenced by the sentiments of the 
community. But the sense of obligation itself, the conviction 
that there is a right and a wrong, and that the former is a law 
for all conduct, is not accidental. It is so indubitably consti- 
tutional that the person in whom it should not appear with the 
unfolding of intelligence would, by common consent, be reck- 
oned inhuman and monstrous. Whence came this universal 
feeling of subjection to moral law? If there is a holy will 
above the skies, it is adequately explained as the imprint of 
the Lawgiver, who, in fashioning men, designed them to be 
the subjects of a kingdom of righteousness. On the other 
hand, if the thought of God be excluded, no satisfactory ex- 
planation can be given. ‘To deduce the moral from the non- 
moral involves the same violence to the maxim of sufficient 
cause as the derivation of the intelligent from the non-intelli- 
gent. Is man proved by his history to be a religious being? 
Then his nature finds its perfect complement in the conception 
of a Being who, as personal, promises communion, and as per- 
fect invites to adoring contemplation. Is the zsthetic sense 
accessory to religion and an avenue of refined enjoyment? 
Faith in God affords assurance that the “soul of loveliness ”’ 
shall never vanish out of the system of things, since beauty is 
linked with absolute being, and may flow forth forever with- 
out expending its fullness. Does the whole nature of man — 
intellectual, moral, religious, and sesthetic-——demand for its 
satisfaction the thought of an everlasting kingdom of righteous- 
ness? God is the necessary presupposition of such a kingdom, 
its founder, conserver, and bond of unity. 

But, it has been urged, this way of arguing is anthropo- 
morphic. It arbitrarily erects man into a measure of reality, 
and assumes that there must be a counterpart to his attributes. 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 67 


Herbert Spencer has thus objected to this method: “If we 
make the grotesque supposition that the ticking and other 
movements of a watch constituted a kind of consciousness, 
and that a watch possessed of such a consciousness insisted 
on regarding the watchmaker’s action as determined, like its 
own, by springs and escapements, we should simply complete 
a parallel of which religious teachers think much. And were 
we to suppose that a watch not only formulated the cause of 
its existence in these mechanical terms, but held that watches 
were bound out of reverence so to formulate this cause, and 
even vituperated as atheistic watches any that did not venture 
so to formulate, we should merely illustrate the presumption of 
theologians by carrying their own argument a step further.” ! 
To this Samuel Harris well replies: “The objection rests on 
the absurdity that if a watch should become endowed with 
reason, it would still remain a mere machine, just as it was be- 
fore, and therefore would see nothing in itself but mechanism, 
and could ascribe nothing but mechanism to its maker. But 
if a watch were endowed with reason it would no longer be a 
mere machine, but a rational person. Then contemplating its 
own mechanism it would infer, precisely as a rational man 
does in contemplating it, that it had a maker like itself in 
intelligence, but not necessarily like itself in mechanism. 
And should this intelligent watch ridicule all intelligent 
watches that believe they were made by an intelligent maker, 
it would be like Mr. Spencer ridiculing intelligent men for 
believing their Creator to be an intelligent being.” ? 

A crude anthropomorphism deserves no apology. But it 
would take some better evidence than the ticking of a hypo- 
thetical watch to show that it is illegitimate to represent the 
fundamental reality as congruous with what is loftiest in 
the nature, experience, and conception of man. It is certainly 


1 First Principles of a New Philosophy, pp. 110, 111. 
2 The Self-Revelation of God, pp. 434, 435. Compare Bowne’s Review of 
Herbert Spencer, pp. 74, 75. 


68 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


quite as philosophical and quite as honoring to the funda- 
mental reality to think of it anthropomorphically in this sense, 
as to think of it in an earthy or nihilistic manner. The alter- 
native of not thinking at all is inapplicable wherever there is 
living intellect. 


XI.— An ALLEGED DEFICIENCY IN THE FOREGOING 
ARGUMENTS. 


It will perhaps be suggested that the arguments presented 
do not yet reach the proper goal, since they prove only the 
existence of an adequate cause of the world (including man in 
his intellectual and moral nature), but the world as known 
to us is finite, and no finite effect necessarily implies an in- 
finite cause. 

The objection may be formally valid, but it is practically 
insignificant. Any one who acknowledges an intelligent author 
of the world will never be subject to any painful anxiety as 
respects His infinitude. The creature universe is so vast that 
the imagination faints before the task of picturing its immen- 
sity. There is nothing too in the way of the faith that the 
power which was able to make the known world could make 
another world, or any number of other worlds, of equal magni- 
tude. Indeed, our own experience of intelligence and will as 
not being exhausted in their products, naturally directs us to 
the inference that the supreme will and intelligence abide 
in inexhaustible fulness, beyond all the accomplished work of 
creation. We cannot, without violence to our spontaneous 
conviction, withhold the conclusion that there is no conceiv- 
able outpost which the power of the Creator may not tran- 
scend., 

In reaching this view, however, we have come to as posi- 
tive a notion of the infinite as we are able to form. If God 
is the source of all actual being, and there is also in Him an 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 69 


unlimited possibility of being, He realizes truly the notion of 
the Infinite One. 

If it be still insisted that it is only natural, not strictly 
necessary, to infer infinitude, the answer must be: An ideal 
against which no objection can be urged, which always springs 
into view with the advance of intelligence and is intrinsically 
agreeable to the human mind, rightly demands acceptance. 


XII. — CRITICISM OF SOME INCONCLUSIVE ARGUMENTS. 


It will be noticed that no account has been taken of the 
so-called ontological argument. The reason of the omission 
is the conviction that this argument fails to accomplish what 
it professes. It affords no real demonstration, and all the 
truth which lies at its basis has already received due credit in 
the specification of the cogency with which the idea of the 
infinite or perfect takes hold of human intelligence. As Lotze 
puts the subject: ‘“ Not out of the perfection of the Perfect as 
a logical consequence is His real existence inferred, but with- 
out the circumlocution of a deduction the impossibility of His 
non-existence is immediately felt.” } 

As is intimated in the foregoing, the ontological argument 
assumes to prove the existence of God from the idea of God. 
Its distinct formulation was first given by Anselm. We are 
to define God, he says, as the greatest that can be conceived. 
Even the fool who denies in his heart that there is a God can 
take this definition into his understanding. So he can be con- 
vinced that the greatest that can be thought is in the under- 
standing (7 zutellectu). But the greatest that can be thought 
cannot be in the understanding alone, since to be in reality 
(tz re), as well as in the understanding, or mental conception, 
is greater than to be in the latter alone. ‘‘ There undoubtedly 





1 Mikrokosmos, IX, 4. 


7O LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


exists therefore something, than which a greater cannot be 
thought, both in the understanding and in reality.”’"! Descartes 
reproduced essentially the same argument. As the mind, he 
says, from seeing that the idea of a triangle involves the 
equality of its three angles to two right angles, undoubtingly 
concludes that the three angles of a triangle are in fact equal 
to two right angles, ‘“‘so, from its perceiving necessary and 
eternal existence to be comprised in the idea which it has of 
an all-perfect Being, it ought to conclude that this all-perfect 
Being exists.” ? 

What the reasoning of Anselm or Descartes really amounts 
to is an illustration of the truth that the complete and consist- 
ent idea of a perfect being must include among other things 
the notion of necessary or real existence. But the argument 
is as far from proving the real existence of such a being as the 
idea of real existence is from identity with real existence. In 
other words, the greatest conceivable being is hypothetical 
in the definition ; otherwise there is no excuse for the form 
of anargument. The argument, therefore, as merely analyzing 
the hypothetical, cannot deduce the real, since analysis never 
legitimately draws out anything which was not before included. 
The self-consistent hypothesis, or idea of the perfect, must first 
be joined with some reality before it can in any wise evidence 
the real. Join it with the historical fact that it is an idea to 
which the intellect and heart of man most profoundly respond, 
and it becomes at once supported by all our confidence in our 
mental and moral constitution. But, in taking this step, we 
have departed from the ontological argument; we are now 
depending on a historical datum, rather than on the demon- 
strative virtue of a mere idea. 


1 Proslog. II. 2 The Principles of Philosophy, Part I. 

3 Compare the remark of Andrew Seth: “There is no evolution possible of a 
fact from a conception. The existence of God must either be an immediate 
certainty, or it must be involved in facts of experience which do possess that 
certainty.” (Hegelianism and Personality, p. 119.) 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 71 


Besides reproducing the proper ontological argument, Des- 
cartes reasoned that the idea of God is such that its presence 
in the mind cannot be explained except on the supposition of 
an author possessing infinite perfections. “Though the idea 
of substance,” he says, “be in my mind owing to this, that I 
myself am a substance, I should not, however, have the idea 
of an infinite substance, seeing I am a finite being, unless it 
were given me by some substance in reality infinite. And 
I must not imagine that I do not apprehend the infinite by a 
true idea, but only by the negation of the finite, in the same 
way that I comprehend repose and darkness by the negation 
of motion and light: since, on the contrary, I clearly perceive 
that there is more reality in the infinite substance than in the 
finite.” ? 

The underlying assumption in this argument seems not to 
be well taken. While the vitality of the idea of God, or its 
power over the human spirit, makes credible the supposition 
that it is in fact divinely fostered, there is no good reason to 
suppose that the mere fashioning of the idea is beyond the 
capability of a finite mind. It may be true that finite and 
infinite must be taken in mutual opposition in order that either 
should be properly understood. But it is entirely conceivable 
that the mind should initiate observation and comparison with- 
out a formal recognition of either. It can take note in the 
first place of a given magnitude. Then observing a second 
magnitude, it can pronounce it greater than the first. Of a 
third magnitude, it can pronounce that it is greater than the 
second ; and so on towards the limits of observation. In carry- 
ing forward this process of comparison, the mind, it is true, so 
long as it keeps strictly to the process, will not get beyond the 
relative. But who will say that the mind, after having pro- 
nounced one thing greater than another in succession, cannot, 
sooner or later, raise the inquiry whether there is not some- 


es 


1 Meditation ITI. 


72 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


thing so great that no greater can be supposed? If, in virtue 
of its own endowments, it can make this inquiry, Descartes’ 
argument is invalid, since in making the inquiry it has grasped 
the notion of the infinite, and with that has also provided for 
a proper definition of the finite. Now, it seems to us a very 
poverty-stricken notion of the mind which would deny its com- 
petency to make the specified inquiry. It uses data for sug- 
gestion as well as for strict logical procedure. Invention often 
takes place in this manner. Why may not the method of sug- 
gestion apply on the subject of the divine existence? Surely 
it is not at all extravagant to believe that the mind can spring 
from the last member, which has been noted in an ascending 
rank of greatness, to the thought of the unqualifiedly great, 
or the infinite; just as it can complete its representation of a 
chain of conditioned causes with the thought of an ultimate 
cause. 

The theory that God is known by direct intuition must also 
be reckoned among views that lack a solid basis; at least, if 
these terms be taken strictly, and be made to mean more than 
the fact that the traits of man’s intellectual and emotional 
nature lead naturally, and almost of necessity, to the recog- 
nition of a Divine Being. If the intuition (or direct mental 
vision) is regarded as common to men, it ought to have secured 
a much more uniform conception of the divine nature than is 
found to have actually existed. If the intuition is allowed to 
be exceptional, an explanation of its limited presence may 
reasonably be asked for. Moreover, there is a certain intrin- 
sic difficulty in conceiving of such an intuition. A limited 
mind, though it undoubtedly has the thought of the infinite, 
cannot be regarded as competent actually to see the infinite. 
An intuition of God in His infinitude is therefore excluded. 
But if the intuition is not of God in His infinitude, it is of 
something less than God. This lesser something may, indeed, 
partially reveal God by way of token or suggestion; but it 
cannot be anything more than a limited theophany presented 


EXISTENCE OF THE INFINITE PERSON. 73 


to the inner vision. Such a theophany, as well as any other 
partial disclosure, would need to be supplemented by rational 
inference ; and the question could be raised whether it would 
be a surer ground of inference than that which is provided in 
nature and in the moral constitution of man. It would, in 
any case, need to be well coordinated with a system of objective 
reality before assurance could be given that it was due to any- 
thing more than a peculiar subjective affection. 

Laying aside, then, doubtful proofs, we may sum up the 
_tenor of the discussion in the conclusion, that faith in the 
existence of an Infinite Person is justified by the compatabil- 
ity of personality with infinitude, rightly understood, by the 
unsatisfactory and ruinous outcome of anti-theistic theories, 
and by the validity of the cosmological and teleological argu- 
ments, as also of that from human nature. 


74 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


CHAPTER IIL. 
REVELATION. 


I. — PossiIBILITY AND PROBABILITY OF SPECIAL REVELA- 
TIONS IN VIEW OF THE EXISTENCE OF A PERSONAL 
Gop. 


THE idea of revelation is provided for in the existence of a 
Supreme Person. As was noticed in the preceding chapter, 
it best suits simplicity and consistency of thinking to make 
nature dependent upon God for its being as well as for its 
order. In this view, as being through and through an effect 
of divine agency, it manifests God in so far as it has any dis- 
tinct significance for the human mind. 

As Supreme Person, however, God is not merely back of 
nature, but over it and free to act upon it, or within it, as may 
suit His pleasure. That is, upon the stated manifestation of 
Himself in nature He may superinduce special manifestations 
of His attributes and purposes. If He never acts in this 
way it cannot be from lack of ability, but only from lack of 
occasion. To assume the contrary is to deny to Him that 
self-determination which is essential to the proper notion 
of personality. As regards possible occasions for special 
manifestations, there can be little motive to enter a denial, 
except in pursuance of the theory that nature is an end in 
itself, or that it is an entirely adequate means for compassing 
all the ends which God contemplates in connection with the 
creature universe. But what warrant is there for either as- 
sumption? Impersonal nature has no worth to itself, and 


REVELATION. rE 


consequently can have no worth at all, except as it is subordin- 
ated to the good of beings characterized by feeling and inteili- 
gence. An eternal kingdom of righteousness is most fitly 
regarded as the crown of the divine intention in the creation. 
The race is in training for that kingdom. In proportion to 
the supreme worth of the kingdom the exigencies of this 
training must become matters of the profoundest concern in 
the divine administration. That the ordered course of nature 
is competent to meet all such exigencies is by no means self- 
evident. While man’s limitations put him in need of spiritual 
education, his sin makes him a difficult subject to educate 
properly. Divine tuition must contend against apathy, per- 
versity, and blindness. The abnormal condition of the subject 
of the tuition makes a demand for special remedial agency. 
His attention and interest, his ambition and aspiration, must 
be elicited by something more awakening than the every-day 
appearance of things. In fine, a single glance at the tragedy 
of human sin and folly ought to dissipate the fiction that 
nature affords an adequate revelation for man in his actual 
condition. It may be indeed sufficient to involve a measure 
of responsibility, but it is not sufficient to supply the highest 
motive-power or the most efficient guidance. 

The objection that the doctrine of special revelation is dis- 
paraging to the wisdom of God, inasmuch as it represents 
Him as mending and supplementing His work, has no solidity. 
Nature doubtless accomplishes all that God ever intended that 
it should accomplish. It serves His full purpose in the line 
of a general revelation, and affords moreover the requisite 
theatre for special revelations. The special, or extraordinary, 
has the virtue of the extraordinary only as it stands in antith- 
esis to the ordinary. By the union of the two, God is known 
not merely as law, or force working according to law, but as 
living and present personality, interested in men, and reaching 
forth a hand to lift them up into fellowship with Himself. 
Nature is sufficiently honored by this view, since it is left to 


76 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


accomplish all that it is intrinsically fitted to accomplish ; and 
divine wisdom is sufficiently magnified, since it is represented 
as making that combination of factors which is intrinsically 
best suited to the enlightenment and education of the race — 
that combination, namely, in which the impression made by a 
persistent scheme of natural law is supplemented by the vitality 
of incentive which belongs to the special or extraordinary, 
partly by reason of the essential worth of its content, and partly 
by reason of its very contrast with the ordinary and recurring. 

Special revelation may be outward, in the sphere of external 
nature or in the visible history of men and nations ; or, it may 
be inward, consisting in a message to some elect spirit among 
men, who then becomes the instrument for its communication 
to others. By the union of these forms of manifestation the 
body of truth which is contained in the Bible has been provided. 
The Bible is the great depository of special revelations. In 
considering therefore the process by which it has been pre- 
pared, and in examining the characteristics which legitimate 
the belief that it contains the authentic truth of God, we are 
filling out the theme which is most prominently suggested by 
the term revelation. 


II. — RATIONAL PRESUPPOSITIONS RESPECTING THE PRO- 
CESS OF REVELATION, AS FOUNDED IN THE INTELLEC- 


TUAL AND MorAL LIMITATIONS OF MEN. 
\ 


As respects the process of revelation, certain rational pre- 
suppositions may be laid down with a good degree of certainty. 
In the first place a sound theory of cognition will not allow us 
to assume a purely passive subject of revelation. In order to 
mental assimilation a certain amount of mental action is indis- 
pensable. A manifestation upon which the mind should not 
react according to its constitution would induce only a blind 
impression. It could have no real import for the person to 


———— 


REVELATION. 77 


whom it might be addressed, and of course he could be no fit 
instrument for communicating its import to another. 

Since mental activity is requisite for any appropriation of 
knowledge, the capacity for revelation — that is, for appre- 
hending the import of divine manifestation —- must in a sense 
be measured by the capacity for mental activity. As the 
human teacher cannot immediately transfer the treasures of 
his learning to the child, but must wait on his gradually un- 
folding capacity, so the Divine Teacher cannot discard the 
limitations of the human mind. What if there is infinite 
ability on the divine side to impart? There is limited power 
of apprehension on the human side. This power may be en- 
larged through a certain scale without violence to the mental 
constitution, but there is always a point, at any given time, 
which cannot be passed in consistency with personal identity 
or the continuity of the mental life. To make an undeveloped 
mind, which is still struggling with the mysteries of the alpha- 
bet, suddenly recipient of profound metaphysical truth, would 
be like alienating it from itself, or displacing it by another 
mental subject —a consummation to be characterized rather 
as profoundly unnatural than as simply supernatural. A simi- 
lar stretch of magic would occur if a soul which had been 
immersed in the life of sense should instantaneously be lifted 
up to a lofty and comprehensive understanding of things 
spiritual. God cannot be expected to treat His workmanship 
with so little regard as to cancel the laws of development 
which He has implanted in the mental constitution. 

If there are inteliectual limitations to revelation, there are 
also moral. The two are, in fact, closely related. As man is 
not a purely intellectual being, the ground upon which opin-: 
ions are held is very apt to be something else than purely 
intellectual considerations. The will and the affections are 
potent factors in the choice and tenure of opinions. In _pro- 
portion as there is egoism or self-idolatry in a person, he will 
naturally be inclined to regard his customary judgments with 


78 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


somewhat of idolatrous veneration. In proportion as impetu- 
ous zeal is characteristic of a man he will be likely to answer 
opposition to cherished opinions with quick resentment. Preju- 
dice instinctively repels as an enemy all light that shines for 
an opposing conclusion. Thus opinions and beliefs become 
intrenched behind tempers and tendencies that have more or 
less of a moral character. This is true of the best and sin- 
cerest men. Accordingly, in almost any human subject of 
revelation that can be selected, we must suppose a moral bar- 
rier to perfect recipiency ; some tinge of egoism, some rem- 
nant of prejudice, some pride of opinion, some disinclination 
to revise what has been closely associated with one’s self, one’s 
nation, or one’s sect. No doubt hindrances of this order may 
be ameliorated by divine grace. There are, in truth, indications 
that the same Spirit which illuminated the minds of the 
prophets as to outside matters, disclosed to them so vividly 
their own imperfection as greatly to humble and chasten. 
But, still, in proportion as it is unwarrantable to assume irre- 
sistible grace, or to take for granted the entire sanctification 
of any given subject of revelation, it is necessary to suppose 
recipiency for the divine message to be qualified on one side 
or another. 

Analogy points in the same direction as the foregoing con- 
clusions. The natural kingdom hes before the face of all 
men, and is ever uttering its message. Why has that message 
been understood so slowly? Because the object has been so 
much larger than the mental capacity, or power of insight, 
which has been set over against it. Even the foremost minds 
have been recipient of only a part of the message. Inherited 
misconceptions have restrained them on the one side, and 
on the other they have been hemmed in by their own limited 
vision. By the necessities of the case, the interpretation of 
nature has advanced through many successive stages, the dis- 
coveries of one age serving as a platform for a wider outlook 
in the succeeding. Why, in man’s understanding of the vast 


REVELATION. 79 


spiritual universe, should it be conceived that there is a radi- 
cally different law of progress? Special divine interposition 
may undoubtedly facilitate progress in this sphere, and bring 
to a goal which could not be reached without its aid ; but even 
omnipotence cannot make finitude anything else than finitude, 
nor consistently cancel the law of gradual unfoldment which is 
a prime condition of mental integrity. 

It is seen, then, that if we are to credit such considerations 
as the necessary activity of the mind upon anything which is 
really appropriated, the fact that this activity is subject to intel- 
lectual and moral limitations, which cannot be eliminated on 
the instant, and the analogy of progress in the understanding 
of the natural world, we must conclude that an ample revela- 
tion from God could become the property of the race only by 
an extended process. 


III. — THe METHOD OF THE BIBLICAL REVELATION AS 
CORRESPONDING WITH THE PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


A glance into the Scriptures will readily show that they 
exhibit a method of revelation which is in full accord with the 
rational presuppositions. Everywhere they illustrate the re- 
quirement of deference to the limited capacity of men, the 
need of disciplinary and educational expedients, the demand 
that providence should concur with inspiration, or the practical 
necessity of employing the aid of special historical circum- 
stances in leading ferward the organs of revelation to enlarged 
religious perceptions. Take such a favored group of men as 
the apostles. After having enjoyed the matchless tuition of 
Christ throughout His public ministry, had they come to a per- 
fect understanding of the divine kingdom? On the contrary, 
they were still greatly in need of light, and apparently were 
not able, in the days of their consternation and bereavement, 
ta construe at all the foundation facts of Christianity as em- 


80 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


bodied in the sufferings and death of the Redeemer. Nor 
did the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost 
complete their furnishing. For years after that great endue- 
ment their minds were more or less clouded on so important a 
question as the relation of the newly-founded Church to Juda- 
ism. It required the march of events — the spread of Chris- 
tianity beyond Jewish limits, and the demonstration that the 
acceptance of the gospel message brought to the uncircum- 
cised all the fruits of the Spirit — to fully convince the apostles 
that the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile had 
been broken down. To bring their feelings into complete 
unison with the new point of view still more may have been 
needed. We can easily believe that such a complete surmount- 
ing of ingrained preference for the Jewish people as appears 
in the fourth Gospel could not have been illustrated among 
the original disciples, until the destruction of the temple and 
prolonged experience of the stubborn hostility of the Jewish 
nation to the name of Christ had severed old bonds, and allowed 
the attention to be directed to the Gentile world as the field of 
real promise for Christianity. 

If the law of gradual progress was thus illustrated by those 
who stood in the culminating light of revelation, there is no 
reason to doubt that it was operative during the antecedent 
stages. Grant that it is going beyond warrant to make the 
Old Testament revelation simply a product of the historic evo- 
lution of Israel; it is still legitimate and necessary to regard 
the revelation as closely connected with and dependent upon 
the history. The exceptional experiences of the nation were 
made efficient means for impressing religious lessons, and none 
profited so much by these lessons as the elect spirits who were 
naturally chosen to be the spokesmen for Jehovah. Majestic 
providences went before lofty conceptions of God. That mar- 
velous interposition, by which Israel was rescued from Egyp- 
tian bondage and settled in the land of promise, became a 
permanent factor in the higher range of Hebrew piety. In 


REVELATION. $1 


the whole list of great prophets there was not one whose 
conceptions of the divine attributes and the national vocation 
were not shaped by the story of the exodus and the wilder- 
ness march. And the great events of the following ages had 
not a little to do with the current of religious ideas. Especially 
fruitful was the long ordeal of apprehension and disaster which 
reached its crisis in the desolation of the Holy Land and the 
scattering of its people in exile. The greatest prophets wrote 
under a profound impression of divine chastisements appointed 
to their nation. They felt, as it were, the tremor in the ground 
caused by the distant tread of hostile armies, or were wit- 
nesses of the ruin which the spoilers left in their track. The 
flood of afflictions was like a new and greater Red Sea baptism, 
testing faith in Jehovah, exalting it where it stood firm, and 
imbuing it with an element of peculiar tenderness. Hope, 
stimulated and fortified by the record of marvelous provi- 
dences in the past, mingled with patriotic grief over impend- 
ing or accomplished disaster to produce an unrivaled literature. 
If it is true that the prophets were divinely-guided interpre- 
ters of events, it is equally true that the events which came 
under their contemplation were utilized to shape their thought 
and feeling, and helped to interpret to them the character and 
purposes of God. 

In the Psalms, also, the historic basis of revelation is very 
conspicuous. The experiences of a thousand years are wrapt 
up in these lyrics. Back of their interplay of light and shadow 
was the long record of glory and shame, deliverance and chas. 
tisement, victory and humiliation. They are filled with mani- 
fold riches, and have a catholic adaptation because they reflect 
so widely the heights and depths of national and personal ex- 
perience. Whatever else may have been indispensable, the 
long train of experiences was needed to evoke from Israel’s 
harps these deep and varied strains. 

In the progress of revelation, the outward and the inward, 
the element of historic suggestion and the element of spiritual 


82 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


impact or monition, were doubtless woven together too subtly 
for finite insight to determine exactly their respective spheres. 
I{fuman onesidedness can easily be betrayed into an undue 
disparagement of the latter as well as of the former. Still, it 
is clearly none too much to say, that both a rational estimate 
of man’s limitations and a candid observation of the conditions 
of biblical production emphasize the dependence of revelation 
upon a historic process. Divine deeds, quite as much as divine 
inspirations, have furnished the subject-matter of the Bible. 
Indeed, revelation might be defined with approximate exact- 
ness as a series of divine deeds, apprehended in a conscious- 
ness vivified and illuminated by the Divine Spirit. The 
contrary view, which makes revelation simply a bundle of 
communications that were delivered out and out from heaven 
into the minds of passive recipients, 1s unphilosophical, and so 
far aside from reality as to be fairly whimsical. 


1V.— Tuer PROOF FOR THE BIBLE WHICH IS INVOLVED IN ITS 
COMPREHENSIVENESS, OR IN THE VARIETY AND BALANCE 
OF THE FACTORS WHICH IT CONTAINS. 


The intimacy and breadth of historical connections, which 
distinguish the contents of the Bible, rightly arrest the atten- 
tion when one is looking to the grounds of the belief that a 
veritable revelation has been given to men. Indeed, histori- 
cal comprehensiveness, or that which it provides for, namely, 
a special variety and balance of factors, is no mean credential 
of the Christian’s Bible. As respects this character it may 
safely challenge comparison. No other compendium of sacred 
literature appears as a successful rival. It is the unique glory 
of the biblical revelation, that, in the vast sweep and variety 
of its movement, it offsets its own limitations, lifts, sooner or 
later, into due prominence all important truths of religion, and 
presents them as parts of an organic whole. 


REVELATION. 83 


Even if we limit our view to the Old Testament, we may 
notice a very significant balance of factors. On the one hand 
was the Law, majestic in its Sinaitic compendium, stern in 
many of its prescriptions, minute and exacting in its cere- 
monial requirements. It was Israel’s schoolmaster, and ful- 
filled a needed function of discipline. To everyone who was 
at all alive to its import it was a standing witness and object- 
lesson on the claims of the divine holiness. It served also as 
a national cement, impressed upon Israel a sense of her peculiar 
vocation, and fostered such definite religious habits as were 
adapted to be a bulwark against the intrusion of alien systems. 
On the other hand was Prophecy, the advocate of the spirit 
rather than of the form ; emphasizing inward righteousness 
incomparably more than ceremonial cleanness ; not disdainful 
of outward sacrifices, but capable of spurning them when pre- 
sented as a substitute for the inward offering of true submis- 
sion and loyal devotion to Jehovah ; a faithful witness to the 
supremacy of ethical interests, a foe to empty ecclesiasticism, 
and a friend of spiritual worship. 

Some modifications of this broad contrast might perhaps be 
pointed out ; but the general antithesis holds good, and is a 
mark of comprehensiveness in the Old Testament religion. By 
the union, in the same dispensation, of Law and Prophecy dif- 
ferent and apparently conflicting interests were satisfied. If 
the Law served to impress the notion of duty, to compact the 
religion of Israel, and to fortify it against disintegrating con- 
tact with Gentile systems, Prophecy was needed to spiritualize 
the conception of duty, to add progressiveness to stability, to 
bring the universal principles of religion into view, and thus 
to act as the congenial forerunner of the universal faith of 
Christianity.! 


1 It may be noticed that recent criticism, while subordinating Law to Prophecy 
in respect of value, does not deny an important vocation to the former. Thus 
W. Robertson Smith says: “The legal ritual did not satisfy the highest spiritual 
needs, but it practically extinguished idolatry. It gave palpable expression to the 


84 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


A less distinct antithesis than that between Law and Proph. 
ecy, but one which nevertheless illustrates the balance of 
factors in the Old Testament, is that between the Literature 
of Devotion and the Literature of Wisdom. ‘The one is the 
outburst of religious feeling under all varied conditions ; the 
other is the product of moral and religious reflection, joined 
with not a little of the prudence derived from a large expe- 
rience of the world. The former has its great compendium 
in the Psalms, which share largely in the spirit of Prophecy, 
but constitute a distinct type of sacred writing in the predomi- 
nance of the devotional over every other interest. The latter 
includes both the terse aphorisms of the Book of Proverbs and 
the lofty poem in which Job and his companions discuss the 
deep problem of the divine rule in its, relations to human suf- 
fering. The one group supplements the other as clear-sighted 
prudence and reflective wisdom supplement spontaneous emo- 
tion. That the two should be combined in the same volume 
which contains the Law and Prophecy is no mean token of 
comprehensiveness. Had the Old Testament, like the Koran, 
been prepared by a single hand, it could have included no such 
wealth of mutually supplementary factors. 

In the framework of its theology, also, a comprehensiveness 
and balance pertain to the Old Testament which place it in 
favorable contrast with the ethnic systems. It conserves 
reality both to God and the creature, and upholds the ethical 
relation between them. All pantheistic and nihilistic theories, 
with their ultimate sacrifice of ethical values, are quite aside 
from its standpoint. It has no affinity with the Brahmanical 
doctrine of reabsorption, no share in the Buddhistic aspiration 


spiritual nature of Jehovah, and, around and within the ritual prophetic truths 
gained a hold of Israel such as they had never had before... . That the Law 
was a divine institution, that it formed an actual part in the gracious scheme of 
guidance which preserved the religion of Jehovah as a living power in Israel till 
shadow became substance in the manifestation of Christ, is no theory, but an _his- 
torical fact, which no criticism as to the origin of the books of Moses can in the 
least degree invalidate.” (The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, pp. 313, 314.) 


REVELATION. 85 


after the suspension of concrete existence. On the contrary, 
endless fellowship with God, ministered through moral like- 
ness, is the ideal toward which it tends by virtue of its interior 
truth and life, even where it does not come to an explicit 
affirmation of that ideal. It also keeps clear of the dualistic 
extreme. While it is penetrated by an intense view of the 
might and prevalence of evil in the world, it does not, like 
Zoroastrianism, abridge the ethical character of the antithesis 
between good and evil by carrying it up into the Godhead, or 
making it originally characteristic of created being. If its 
stress upon the supremacy and sovereignty of God is some- 
what akin to a trait of Mohammedanism, in its broader por- 
trayal of the divine attributes, it gives in the aggregate no such 
image of arbitrary might as dominated the Mohammedan con- 
ception. In the Psalms and the prophetical writings there 
are passages descriptive of the divine tenderness which cannot 
be matched from the pages of the Koran. It is also to be 
remembered in any comparative view, that Mohammedanism in 
the better range of its contents is rather to be described as a 
mutilated copy of the Old Testament religion than as an origi- 
nal contribution of the Arabian prophet. 

If we extend the view so as to include the New Testament, 
we shall greatly enlarge the illustration of the sweep of revela- 
tion and of the effective way in which it has brought organic 
completeness out of variety and contrast. In the first place, 
as respects the relation between the two Testaments, a 
broad contrast is undoubtedly apparent. But the contrast is 
one which rather confirms than denies the divine office of the 
Hebraic dispensation. It is, in large part, the contrast between 
approaching dawn and the bright sunrise. If there is any 
contradiction between the earlier and the later revelation, it is 
on points which the earlier, by its own advance, tended to 
revise in the direction of the later. Does the New Testa- 
ment rise above all national bounds and race distinctions ? 


There are foregleams of this grand universalism in the Old 
7 


86 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


Testament.' Does the gospel disclose God to men as the 
Father in heaven? The Old Testament made at least an 
initial advance towards this conception; if in the main it did 
not venture to represent the individual as standing before 
Jehovah in the filial relation, it did assume that relation for 
Israel as the chosen people.?, Does the New Testament light 
up the world beyond with the anticipated glory of an immortal 
life? The volume of the older dispensation was not closed till 
it had recorded some premonitions or glimpses of victory over 
death and the grave.2 And so as regards other truths which 
may be considered distinctive of the New Testament system ; 
if they are to be pronounced beyond the Old Testament, this 
is to be understood generally in a comparative rather than in 
an absolute sense. The movement of that revelation was 
in their direction, even as Christ declared that He came not to 
destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill, that is, to 
achieve their ideal meaning and purpose.’ 

While the general character of the antithesis between the 
two grand divisions of revelation is that between limited and 
full disclosure, a qualification is necessary. The majesty 
and holiness of God are portrayed in such lofty terms in the 
Hebrew Scriptures that it is not easy to conceive of the possi- 
bility of more impressive delineations. It was not necessary 
that the New Testament should make God more transcen- 
dently majestic, but that it should facilitate the sense of fellow- 
ship with Him, by clothing His overshadowing greatness with 


1 Ps, Ixxxvii; Isa. ii. 2-4, xix. 23-25, xlix. 6, lvi. 3-7, Ix. 3; Mic. iv. 1-4; Jer. 
iii. 17; Zeph. iii. 9, 10; Zech. xiv. 16. 

2 Ex, iv. 22; Deut. viii. 5; Ps. Ixxiii. 15; Prov. iii. 12; Hos. xi. 1; Isa. lxiii. 16, 
leiv.' 83) Jer. xxxi.' 97) Mal.16, 

3 Deut. xxxii. 39; 1 Sam. ii. 6; Ps. xvi. 10, 11, xlix, 15, lxxiii. 24-26; Hos. vi. 
2, xiii. 14; Isa. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19, lili. 9, 10; Dan. xii. 2. 

4The words of Hermann Schultz may appropriately be eds “There is 
positively not one New Testament idea that cannot be conclusively shown to be a 
healthy and natural product of some Old Testament germ, nor any truly Old 
Testament idea which did not instinctively press towards its New Testament 
fulfillment.” (Old Testament Theology, I. 52.) 


REVELATION. 87 


the light of fatherly goodness and redeeming love. Asa mind 
which has felt the unapproachable majesty and purity of God 
is best prepared to appreciate the privilege of fellowship with 
Him, it is evident that the function of the Old Testament was 
not wholly absorbed in preparation for the New. It does more 
than register the historic process which led on to the gospel. 
In its sublime descriptions of the divine exaltation and holiness 
it provides in perpetuity a fitting background for true worship. 
Also in other lines the Old Testament remains serviceable, 
both as approximating to the plane of the New in its subject- 
matter, and as putting truth in that vivid concrete form which 
most readily takes hold of the imagination. It remains thus a 
book of edification, notwithstanding a great expansion of the 
spiritual horizon was effected by the gospel. 

Taking still further the New Testament by itself, it is not 
difficult to see how different types have supplemented one 
another, and so ministered to the wealth and completeness of 
the revelation. This holds of the Gospels. It was undoubtedly 
of great importance to have the life of Christ presented in its 
plain objectivity, and this has been accomplished by the Synop- 
tists. To a very large extent they kept themselves out of 
their narratives, and occupied themselves with reproducing 
as far as possible the words and deeds of Christ. Doubtless 
they used some liberty in grouping the sayings of the master. 
It may also be granted that the peculiarities of their individual 
position had a certain effect. For example, Matthew, because 
of his antecedents and surroundings, may have had more 
ambition to associate the events of Christ’s life with Old 
Testament types and foreshadowings than was shown by 
Luke under the influence of a close association with the Gen- 
tile world. But still, there is only moderate evidence of sub- 
jective tinge in any one of the Synoptical Gospels. We have 
here a record of what had been offered at large to the eyes and 
ears of men, or at least had fallen under the observation of the 
disciples in common, Narratives so nearly colorless, giving 


88 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


such a line of events in their simple objectivity, are of inestim- 
able value. But, on the other hand, congenial interpretation 
is not of slight consequence. To know how Christ was imaged 
in the mind of one who stood specially near to Him, and whose 
receptive spirit retained a distinct impress of the more private 
discourses of his Master, as well as of His public words and 
deeds, is to gain an additional means of acquaintanceship with 
that Master. In this view, the fourth Gospel makes an invalu- 
able supplement to the other three. Grant that the words of 
Christ are rendered therein somewhat freely, are given, so to 
speak, in a Johannine dialect; it is still an advantage to have 
the report of one whose spiritual and idealizing temper fitted 
him to appropriate and to transmit the more ideal import of 
the life and teaching of Christ. 

The Johannine literature, especially that portion of it which 
embraces the fourth Gospel and the Epistles of John, repre- 
sents a distinct theologic type, on the extreme border of the 
apostolic age. It was preceded by two other types, one of 
which, the Pauline, was no less clearly marked ; the other, 
the Petrine, if not given so distinct literary expression as the 
Johannine and the Pauline, is still capable of being defined. 
The three types may be distinguished by their dominant view 
of the office of faith. In accordance with its practical bent 
the Petrine type conceives of faith preéminently as the 
energetic principle of a new life of consecration, steadfastness, 
and victorious struggle. In the Pauline type the stress is upon 
faith as an instrument of justification, the gracious condition 
of appropriating divine righteousness, the means of escaping 
from condemnation and legal bondage into the assured position 
of the children of God. The Johannine type portrays faith 
in particular as the medium of an eternal life begun in the 
present and realized progressively through abiding in the life 
and love of the Redeemer. 

The significance of this union of different types needs little 
comment, It is an illustration of the rounded character of 


REVELATION. 85 


the New Testament revelation ; for these types are not exclu- 
sive but mutually supplementary. The manly energy of 
Petrinism is needed to guard Paulinism from an inert reliance 
upon the fullness of divine grace. The Pauline demonstration 
of the futility of legal righteousness is needed to secure 
Petrinism from the snare of an impertinent self-confidence 
and superficial piety. Both Petrinism and Paulinism need the 
softening and deepening effect of the Johannine conception 
of an interior union with God by the bond of love. The last 
needs both the Petrine and the Pauline standpoints to guard 
the doctrine of the interior life from being pushed into mysti- 
cal exaggeration. In fine, by the addition of one type to 
another the circle of truth is filled out, and a corrective to 
one-sided developments is held forth to the view of all com- 
ing ages. 

The illustration might be carried still further by consider- 
ing such special varieties of form and contents as appear in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse —the one an elo- 
quent and powerful plea for the superiority and finality of 
the dispensation inaugurated in Christ, the other affording 
peculiar riches to the religious imagination by its intense 
portrayal of struggle, triumph and reward. But enough has 
been said to indicate the extraordinary sweep of the biblical 
revelation and the extraordinary balance of its varied contents. 
These characteristics, we claim, are properly reckoned among 
the credentials of the Scriptures. We see, in face of them, 
how the method of the scriptural revelation corresponds to the 
facts of human limitation, inasmuch as completeness is reached 
through an age-long process wherein the varied capacities of a 
great circle of agents are utilized. The prolonged waiting on 
historical opportunities and the blending of diverse factors 
into a consistent system give an impressive view at once of 
divine patience and of divine skill. 


go LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


V.— THE SIGNAL PROOF FOR THE BIBLE WHICH IS CON- 
TAINED IN THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST, WITH 
irs APPROPRIATE HIsTORICAL ANTECEDENTS AND 
CONSEQUENTS. 


The scriptural revelation is essentially an organism of redemp- 
tion. As such it finds naturally its unifying principle in the 
person and work of the Redeemer. We may specify accord- 
ingly, as a distinctive characteristic, the unique personality of 
Christ and its intimate and harmonious connection with the 
revelation asa whole. This.is not merely among the foremost 
credentials of revelation; it is distinctively the foremost. The 
unique personality as it is imaged in the gospel narratives, the 
forecast of the same in Messianic prophecy, and the Christ- 
filled content of the whole apostolic literature, make together 
the very heart of Christian evidence. 

Without attempting any complete study of Christ’s person, 
in this connection, we may properly notice some of the points 
which make His life unique in earthly biography. Taking 
what lies on the surface of the New Testament story, we can- 
not fail to be struck with a certain appearance of breadth and 
magnanimity in Christ, a union of contrasted qualities such as 
never could have been reconciled within the compass of an 
ordinary nature. 

A true marvel is Christ’s union of meekness with strength. 
He characterized Himself as meek and lowly in heart, and 
the tenor of the gospel history confirms the description. His 
childhood was spent in quiet subjection to parental authority. 
Apparently no advantage was taken of any presage respecting 
His lofty dignity and office which may have found a place in 
His consciousness. To be sure, we read that at the age of 
twelve He talked with the doctors in the temple. But there 
is no reason to suppose that in this He made any impression 
of a brusque forwardness, or manifested any other disposition 
than that of a sweet-spirited inquisitiveness and intelligence. 


REVELATION. OA 


He contented Himself with obscurity till the appointed hour 
for the manifestation of His Messianic dignity; and then, 
though He accepted unavoidable publicity, He rejected osten- 
tation. He was ready always to work miracles at the dictate 
of benevolence, but never at the call for mere display. Mis- 
calculating zeal for His person was repressed rather than 
encouraged ; when the overflowing enthusiasm of the people 
would sweep Him on to kingly honors He retired and hid 
Himself. But, with all this meekness, what strength! In 
the very manner of His speech there was something singu- 
larly masterful. He spoke as if truth were His by insight, 
and there was no need to draw from outside sources. As 
Beyschlag remarks, ‘“‘ The spring of divine revelation wells up 
in Him quietly and constantly, not while he is exalted above 
Himself, but while simply Himself and giving Himself. It is 
the eternal foundation of His personal life from which His 
words of eternal life at all times flow.’”’! He quoted indeed 
from Moses and the prophets, but evidently not as unquali- 
fiedly subject to their point of view ; for He distinctly placed 
Himself above the plane of the Mosaic legislation, and assumed 
at one point and another to provide better maxims than it con- 
tained. And not only did He teach in this authoritative 
manner ; He made claims to personal allegiance which He 
would not allow to be abated by any rival whatever. When 
men pleaded the ties of kinship for delay or compromise in 
His service, He told them that no one could be His disciple 
who should allow father or mother, sister or brother, to take 
precedence of Him. When vested authority, tradition, and 
priestly assumption crossed His path in the persons of the 
Pharisees, He met their opposition with a perfectly unbend- 
ing mien, and responded to their captious criticisms with a 
scorching exposure of their hypocrisy and selfishness. Indeed, 
no teacher besides, to whom-men attach sanity, ever assumed 


1 New Testament Theology, I. 37, 


Q2 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


such authority or was so absolutely remote from all com- 
promise, 

A true marvel also in Christ is the union of full compassion 
toward the sinner with sharp intolerance for sin. This isa 
combination which overtaxes human infirmity. With men, 
ordinarily, either sympathy infringes more or less upon the 
domain of principle, or principle trenches in some measure 
upon that of sympathy. It does not seem to have been so 
with Christ. Who can imagine a being more tenderly com- 
passionate toward the sinner, more warmly sympathetic toward 
unworthiness struggling up toward better things? Surely if 
the prophetic picture of one who should not break the bruised 
reed or quench the smoking flax was ever fulfilled, it was here. 
His ministry was like the dew and the sunshine, reviving sensi- 
bility and hope where there had been indifference or despair. 
Persons who would have shrunk from the ordinary teacher had 
the confidence to come to Him. But, on the other hand, who 
can imagine a being more intolerant of sin than Christ appears. 
He scourges it out of the temple and locks every door against 
it. He goes back of the outward act and raises a judgment- 
seat over the inward motion and the disposition. He arraigns 
intemperate and unfounded anger as proximate to the guilt of 
murder. He brands the unchaste desire which follows the 
glance as having already the stain of adultery. He will have 
no division in the heart between God and mammon, no dally- 
ing with any form of evil. “If thy right eye offend thee, 
pluck it out and cast it from thee. And if thy right hand 
offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee.” His language 
expresses a mighty vehemence against sin, an intense repulsion 
against all unrighteousness. 

Again, a remarkable union of spirituality and kindly contact 
with the world may be noticed in Christ. His life was most 
unworldly in tone. It mounted so completely above the ordin- 
ary interests and ambitions of men that it is difficult for us to 
conceive how they could be to Him any source of temptation. 


REVELATION. 93 


His exhortations to renounce anxious cares about the stores 
which the morrow may bring, to lay up treasure in heaven, and 
to estimate the recording of one’s name there the supreme 
cause for rejoicing, indicate how lightly he trod upon the face 
of this temporal world, and how truly the spiritual realm was 
His real home. But, at the same time, the life of Christ gives 
no impression of asceticism or monastic severity. We never 
see Him standing with a scourge over the body; He heals 
instead of mutilating. He manifests no reluctance to grace 
with His presence the innocent festivities of the day. We 
never hear Him denouncing the material world as evil or 
unclean. He treats it rather as the workmanship of His 
Father’s hands, and uses it as a book of divinity from which to 
read off to His hearers most spiritual and beautiful messages 
of truth. In short, He stands in two worlds, and shows how 
a lofty estimate of the one need not cancel a sympathetic 
interest in the other. 

Once more, a transcendent distinction of Christ is seen in 
the union which He exemplifies of human sensibility with 
superhuman grandeur. Page after page of the gospel narra- 
tive approves to the full the title which He gave Himself. 
He was truly the Son of Man, full of all human sensibility. 
We see it in His affectionate discourses to His disciples, in 
His embracement and blessing of little children, in His com- 
passion for the fasting multitude, in His intimacy with the 
family at Bethany, in His tears at the tomb of Lazarus, in His 
desire that chosen friends should be near Him in the time of 
His agony in the garden, in the tender words which He spoke 
from the cross, commending His mother to the care of a faith- 
ful disciple. But with all this fullness of human sensibility, 
how much is revealed that rises above the human plane. Not 
a single token of repentance is found in the life of Christ. 
A liturgy formed after the pattern of His intercourse with 
heaven would not be adapted to any church or to any in- 
dividual upon earth. So far as can be discovered, no feeling 


94 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


of ill-desert ever weighted the flight of his soul toward the 
Father. Standing apart from sin, exempt from its stain, its 
humiliation, and its confusion, he recognized Himself as being 
at once the redeemer and judge of a race of sinners. In the 
assured confidence that He was mediating the true knowledge 
of God, He declared that whoever had seen Him had seen the 
Father, and proclaimed Himself the way, the truth, and the life. 
Though consciously proceeding to crucifixion, without a soldier 
or a statesman in His retinue, He yet spoke as though He 
had under His feet a kingdom such as had never been pictured 
in the dreams of earthly ambition-— a kingdom whose full 
circuit sweeps around all times and worlds and ranks of intel- 
ligent beings. 

When we observe that the lofty consciousness in Christ 
respecting His station and vocation was combined with the 
most perfect balance of the finest human traits, we cannot 
deny it great significance. The extraordinary balance pledges 
clearness and sobriety of self-consciousness. Christ’s sense 
of a special union with the Father is made thus a congruous 
element in the gospel picture, and certifies to us that He was 
the Son of God as well as the Son of Man, Lord over men as 
well as brother of men. 

The appearance of this unique personality is, and must 
remain, the great event of history, the fact to which the atten- 
tion and the inquiries of men must ceaselessly revert. As 
Bushnell has said: “It were easier to untwist all the beams 
of light in the sky, separating and expunging one of the colors, 
than to get the character of Jesus, which is the real gospel, 
out of the world.’ It must stand as the superlative miracle. 
No miracle that Christ is recorded to have wrought approaches 
the miracle of His personality. We see Him indeed through 
the mirror of the gospel narratives. But we are compelled to 
credit their substantial accord with the historical reality. The 
incomparable model must have been before the primitive dis- 
ciples, or the characteristics of the gospel picture mount above 


REVELATION. 95 


all rational explanation. Moreover, the historical reality is 
needed to give a consistent meaning to most remarkable ante- 
cedents and consequents. 


If the singular wealth of Christ’s person attests His divine 
mission, that misson is also approved by the singular prepara- 
tion which was made for His advent. What earthly biography 
beside ever had such a preface as was furnished to that of 
Christ by Messianic prophecy ? 

It is doubtless true that prophecy did not attain to complete 
foresight either of Christ’s person or work. The prophets 
saw in a mirror darkly. Sharing in the common limitations 
of men, they were compelled to use the colors at hand in 
painting the future. Much, therefore, of the local and the 
specifically Judaic entered into their pictures. The coming 
salvation was not always seen by them in the full glory of its 
spirituality and universality, nor its bearer in the full height 
of His unique character. The reality in the gospel, it must 
be confessed, was in very important respects better than the 
prophetic ideal. But itis still one of the marvels of history 
that an ideal was wrought out which so aptly prefaced the 
crowning revelation of divine grace. 

It may be conceded, also, that, in order to conserve a 
Messianic application to many passages, the principle of a 
typical sense in prophecy must be taken with considerable 
latitude. And this may reasonably be done, though of course 
there is in this line some danger of arbitrariness and excess. 
An idealizing faculty, working within the limits of a prelimi 
nary dispensation, is naturally constructive of typical repre- 
sentations. As the dispensation reaches forward to consum- 
mations lying beyond itself, so the ideals that are gathered 
out of it, whatever partial fulfillment they may find at an 
earlier stage, cannot have their complete realization short of 
the dispensation lying beyond. In the onward movement a 
partial fulfillment is equivalent to a demand and a presage of 


96 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


a more perfect fulfillment; in other words, a preliminary 
stage in the unfoldment of an ideal becomes a type for the 
stage of perfection, much as in the evolution of organic na- 
ture a characteristic belonging to a given stage may serve as 
a type or prophecy of what is to be found at a more advanced 
stage. Take, for example, the picture of a righteous sufferer 
in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Suppose that the prophet, 
as some interpreters have thought, conceived of afflicted Is- 
rael collectively, or at least of an elect portion of the nation, 
as the subject of this tender portrayal. In proportion as 
Israel failed to realize the ideal of a guiltless sufferer and 
intercessor, a demand was evoked for a more perfect realiza- 
tion, and the immediate subject of the delineation necessarily 
became typical of the ultimate subject. And so of other pas- 
sages. As in the ascending scale some of the features of 
Christianity are of necessity typical of heaven, so much that 
came nearest to the ideal in Judaism was of necessity typical 
of Christ and His kingdom. It is in this significance that a 
second sense may be attached to various prophecies. The 
prophet, in uttering them, had no double meaning in his 
mind ; but sketching an ideal within the limits of a prelimi- 
nary dispensation, he gave a pattern which could be only par- 
tially filled out by a near development, the completer realization 
having to wait for the more perfect dispensation.! 

The minds of the prophets were directed to a Messianic 
outlook by two great motives, either of which must be regarded 
as worthy of the Spirit of God. These were an intense love 
of righteousness and a courageous optimism. The former 


1On the rational grounds for conceding a considerable place to Messianic 
types in the Old Testament, the following will not appear out of place: “ If 
the incarnation was, indeed, a great ‘ recapitulation of the past,’ the manifestation 
in its fullness of a divine purpose predestined from the beginning, it is not sur- 
prising that the actions and experiences of ancient prophets, saints, priests, martyrs 
and kings, should have been prophetic ; that in these should have been foreshad- 
owed different aspects of Christ’s office and person.” (Ottley, Aspects of the Old 
Testament, p. 410.) 








REVELATION. 97 


would not allow them to be satisfied with any lesser end than 
the triumph of righteousness, the establishment of such a holy 
commonwealth as should be a delight to Jehovah and a praise 
to His name. The latter would not allow them to despair of 
the attainment of this great end, but kept their hearts aglow 
with bright anticipations, even in the face of dire calamities. 
Clinging tenaciously to their lofty hopes, they apprehended 
some compensation for every failure, and over every imperfect 
phase of the national life and economy they drew the out- 
lines of a high ideal. Was the ancient covenant before the 
minds of the prophets as something which had been broken, 
and was no longer effective to bind Israel? They looked 
forward to a time when a new and better covenant should be 
introduced ; when the Lord should betroth Israel unto Him- 
self in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, 
and in mercies; when the law shall be written upon the hearts 
of the people, and they shall know the Lord, from the least 
unto the greatest of them; when a redeemer shall come to 
Zion, and to those that turn from transgression in Jacob, and 
the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon them, and His words 
shall not depart out of their mouth.’ Was the attention of the 
prophets directed to their own order? They apprehended 
that the prophetical succession would be crowned by one who 
should more than realize the mediatorial position of Moses, — 
a faithful servant of Jehovah, who shall bring forth judgment 
unto the Gentiles, who shall be given for a covenant to the 
people and a light to the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to 
bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and them that sit 
in darkness out of the prison house, being anointed to preach 
good tidings, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, to 
comfort all that mourn, that he may be the salvation of the 
Lord to the ends of the earth.?, Did the minds of the prophets 


1 Hosea ii, 18-23; Jer. xxxi. 31-37; Isa. lix. 20, 21, xlii. 6, lv. 3; Ezek. xxxvii. 
26-28. 
2 Deut. xviii. 15; Isa. xlii, 1-7, xlix. 1-6, lxi, 1-3. 


98 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


revert to suffering and sacrifice as conditions of salvation ? 
They caught at least occasional glimpses of a great sufferer, 
a reproach of men and despised of the people, whose hands 
and feet were pierced, whose visage was marred more than 
any man, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, wounded 
for others’ transgressions and bruised for their iniquities, led 
as a lamb to the slaughter, bearing the iniquities of many, and 
having his soul made an offering for sin.) Did the prophets 
reflect upon the possibilities of a consecrated kingship as an 
instrument of righteousness? They looked forward to the 
appearing of a scion of David’s house, a Messianic king, under 
whose benign and everlasting rule mercy and truth should 
meet together. As described by the Psalmist, he is the Lord’s 
son, to whom the nations are appointed for an inheritance and 
the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. He shall 
come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that 
water the earth, and his dominion shall be from sea to sea and 
from the river unto the ends of the earth. He shall be at 
once priest and king-—a priest forever, after the order of 
Melchizedek.? In like exalted strains, Isaiah pictures the 
anointed king: ‘“ There shall come a shoot out of the stock of 
Jesse and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit: and the 
Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, and the spirit of wis- 
dom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the 
spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. Righteousness 
shall be the girdle of his reins. The government shall be 

1 Ps, xxii; Zech, xii. 10; Isa. lii. 14, lili. In reviewing Isaiah liii, one can easily 
sympathize with the opinion of Hermann Schultz, that the writer was carried over 
from the contemplation of the suffering of Israel’s saints, and led to picture an ideal 
sufferer and intercessor. He says: “The figure from which he starts is the actual 
historical figure of which he has so often spoken. But he is raised above himself. 
The figure which he beholds is embodied in an ideal figure in which he sees salva- 
tion accomplished, and all the riddles of the present solved. If it is true anywhere 
in the history of poetry and prophecy, it is true here, that the writer, being full of 
the Spirit, has said more than he himself meant to say, and more than he himself 


understood.”’ (Old Testament Theology, IT. 431-433.) 
2 Ps, ii, Ixxii, cx. Compare Zech, vi. 12, 13. 


REVELATION. 99 


upon his shoulder ; and his name shall be called Wonderful, 
Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
Of the increase of his government, and of peace, there shall 
be no end upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to 
establish it with judgment and righteousness from henceforth, 
even forever.” ! Something of the same inspiring hope ap- 
pears with Jeremiah. ‘“ Behold the days come, saith the Lord, 
that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and he shall 
reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute judgment and 
justice in the land. In his days, Judah shall be saved, and 
Israel shall dwell safely: and this is the name whereby he 
shall be called, The Lord is our righteousness.”’? Micah and 
Zechariah picture the earthly circumstances which are to 
mark the coming prince of David’s house. “Thou, Bethlehem 
Ephratah, which art little among the thousands of Judah, 
out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler 
in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlast- 
ing.’ ® “ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daugh- 
ter of Jerusalem: behold thy king cometh unto thee: he is 
just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass, even 
upon a colt, the foal of an ass.’’* In Daniel’s picture, on the 
other hand, the aspect of heavenly majesty stands in the fore- 
ground. ‘I saw in the night visions, and, behold there came 
with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he 
came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near 
before Him. And there was given him dominion and glory, 
and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and languages 
should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, 
which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall 
not be destroyed.” ® 

As is the glory of the Messianic king, so also is the blessed- 
ness of hiskingdom. It is described as a kingdom from which 


1 Tsaiah xi. 1-5, ix. 6, 7. 
2 Jeremiah xxiii. 5,6. Compare xxxiii. 15; Ezek. xxxiv. 23, xxxvii. 25-28. 
* Micah v.2. ‘ Zech.ix.9. © © Daniel vii. 13, 14. 


100 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


all malice and wildness have been banished, a realm of peace 
and fruitfulness, abounding in such life-giving streams as make 
even the desert to blossom as the rose, enriched with a plenty 
which offers wine and milk without money and without price, 
over whose people Jehovah rejoices as the bridegroom over the 
bride, to whose dwellings no darkness approaches, for the Lord 
shall be Israel’s everlasting light, and the days of her mourn- 
ing shall be ended.! Indeed, unless the descriptions be taken 
as highly wrought emblems of spiritual peace and fullness, the 
prophetic vision lies ahead of us still, and will not blend fully 
with the reality this side of the heavenly border. Whether 
taken in the nearer or the more remote application, it appears 
as a glorious forecast of the Messianic kingdom. 

Thus the love of righteousness in the prophets, and their 
courageous optimism, flowered forth under divine guidance 
into various lines of prediction. What though one and an- 
other representation bears, as has been granted, traces of the 
writer’s special surroundings? The drawing of so many minds 
toward such high levels of hope and the adaptation of their 
varied representations to fill out the picture of the Messiah 
are deeply significant facts. That prophetic idealism moved 
so far toward gospel reality is a manifest token that the same 
divine providence, wisdom, and love were back of both. 


The picture which supplements the manifestation of the 
unique personality of Christ is as congruous with that person- 
ality as the picture which prefaced the manifestation. In full 
accord with the claims of Christ as the world’s redeemer, the 
apostolic literature is permeated with a sense of His tran- 
scendent dignity and of the dependence of all the spiritual 
interests of men upon His gracious offices. He is described 
as the one Lord through whom are all things ;? as having all 
things summed up in Himself ;* as being the one in whom it 


1 Isa. xi, 6-9, xxxv,, liv., lv., lx, Ixv. 17-25. 2 1 Cor. viii. 6. 3 Eph, i. 10, 


REVELATION. IOI 


pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell, and by whom 
He reconciles all things unto Himself ;! as the foundation for 
which there is no substitute;* as the power of God and the 
wisdom of God ;? as the Lord of the dead and the living ;4 as 
the Saviour who has abolished death and brought life and incor- 
ruption to light;® as the Lord of glory ;® as the one whose 
face reveals the light of the knowledge of the glory of God ;7 
as being the effulgence of the Father's glory and the very 
image of His substance ;*8 as the author and perfector of 
faith ;® as having a name in which every knee shall bow ;?° 
as the first and the last and holding the keys of death and 
Hades ; 4 as the object of the doxology, in which the heavenly 
hosts unite in saying ‘“ Worthy is the Lamb that has been slain 
to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and 
honor, and glory, and blessing’’; as being along with the 
Lord Almighty the temple and the light of Heaven. 
Believers are described as the body of Christ ;/ as having 
redemption and cleansing from all sin through the blood of 
Christ ;!° as walking in Christ and rooted and built up in Him; 
as being free in Christ from all condemnation ;" as being cru- 
cified with Christ and finding also their life in Him;!8 as having 
Christ made unto them wisdom, and righteousness, and sancti- 
fication ; as being in Christ new creatures.” In fine, the 
apostolic literature is one continuous illustration of the signifi- 
cance of Christ’s person and of the overmastering impression 
made by His revelation of divine truth and saving purpose.”! 





1 Col. i. 19, 20. © Heb. i. 3. 16 Eph. 1. 7; 1 John i. 7. 
2 1 Cor. iii, II. 9 Heb. xii. 2. 16 Col. ii. 6, 7. 

3 1 Cor. i. 24. 10 Phil. ii. 10. 17 Rom. viii. I. 

4 Rom. xiv. 9. 11 Rev, i. 17, 18. 18 Rom. vi. 6; Gal. ii. 20. 
5 2 Tim. i. 10. 12 Rev, v. 12. 19 t Cor. i. 30. 

6 James ii. I. 18 Rev, xxii. 23. #'2 Cor. ¥, 17. 

7 2 Cor. iv. 6. 14 1 Cor. xii. 27. 


21 A testimony supplementary to that afforded by the apostolic literature might 
be taken from the tenor of history in later times. Here the words of Edgar Quinet 
are very suggestive. ‘The personal grandeur of Christ,” he says, “ is better demon- 


102 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


Thus the chief factors of the Bible are united into a system 
of salvation. In the character of these factors and their har- 
monious relation to each other we have the incomparable evi- 
dence for revelation. The unique personality of Christ, the 
prophetic forecast of the same, and the manifested power of 
that personality in the apostolic literature unite to furnish a 
firm ground for rational faith. 


VI.— EVIDENCE FOR THE BIBLE IN THE FAcTS OF PRo- 
PHETIC~ FORESIGHT. 


The divine element in Messianic prophecy appears for the 
most part not so much in a minute forecast of the future as in 
the reach, elevation, and general appropriateness of expecta- 
tion. It may be said also of prophecy as a whole that it gives 
the substance of coming developments rather than a precise 
sketch of events in their external features. Moreover, the 
demand for correspondence between prediction and the his- 
torical outcome may legitimately be regarded as modified in 
some instances by a conditional element in prophecy, or the 
understanding that a change in human conduct may effect a 
change in the divine ruling. Nevertheless, it is not to be 
overlooked that the Scriptures contain distinct predictions of 


strated by the movement and spirit of the times which have succeeded Him than 
by the Gospels themselves. If I knew nothing of the Scripture and had never 
heard the name of Jesus, I must always have thought that some extraordinary impul- 
sion took place in the world about the time of the Czsars. Whence came this 
impulsion and its wonderful results? When Strauss says that he regards the inven- 
tion of the compass and steamboats as of more importance than the care of a few 
sick folk in Galilee, he is evidently the dupe of his own reasoning; for he knows 
as well as I do that the miracle of Christianity is not there, but rather in the great 
marvel of humanity cured of the evil of slavery, of the leprosy of caste, of the 
blindness of pagan sensuality, able to rise up and carry its bed far away from the 
old world. . .. The continual miracle of the gospel is the reign of a soul which felt 
itself greater than the visible universe.” (Cited by C. M. Tyler, Bases of Religious 
Belief, pp. 227, 228.) 





REVELATION. 103 


special events. Here and there are manifestations of a fore- 
sight which cannot be explained by any natural capacity 
of men. 

As appears from Christ’s conversations with His disciples, 
He contemplated His crucifixion as an event that was perfectly 
certain to occur. He foresaw His betrayal and the disper- 
sion of His disciples. He pictured beforehand the denial of 
Peter, at the very moment when the confident disciple was pro- 
testing his undying fidelity. He painted in terms that were ful- 
filled to the letter the doom impending over Jerusalem and the 
temple. He forecast without a shadow of doubt that the very 
disciples who were to forsake Him in the hour of His humilia- 
tion would take up the cause of their crucified Master with the 
courage and zeal of martyrs, and would carry His gospel well 
towards the ends of the earth. He signified to Peter by what 
death he should glorify God. In short, the future seems to 
have been transparent to Christ so far as His vocation made 
a demand for foresight. 

The prophets of Israel, also, in one and another instance con- 
fidently foretold specific events. A writer of known modera- 
tion, while contending that the prophets were not wont to 
picture events that had no apprehended connection with the 
circumstances of their age, adduces the following list of par- 
ticular and unconditional predictions:! ‘ Michaiah, the son of 
Imlah, prophesied that Ahab and Jehosaphat would be defeated 
by the Syrians, and permitted himself to be thrown into prison, 
with the declaration that he was willing to be regarded as a 
false prophet if his prediction were not fulfilled.? In a similar 
manner Amos predicted the approaching destruction of the 
Damascene kingdom and the carrying of the Syrians to Kir.® 
Isaiah had the fullest certainty that the kings, Rezin and Pekah, 
would not succeed in taking Jerusalem, and that in less than 
three years their countries would be devastated by the Assy- 


a ae ne re en rrr rr te 





1 Riehm, Messianic Prophecy, pp. 92, 93. 8 Amos i, 3-5; 2 Kings xvi. 9. 
2 1 Kings xxii, 17-36. 


104 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


rian armies,! and that the kingdom of Judah would be heavily 
afflicted by Assyria, from which it had expected help? He 
also published the deliverance of Jerusalem from the army of 
Sennacherib, and the destruction of the latter by the direct 
interposition of Jehovah and the hasty flight of the remnant.® 
On the other hand, Jeremiah predicted the fixed purpose of 
God to accomplish the destruction of Jerusalem and the over- 
throw of the Jewish kingdom by His servant Nebuchadnezzar ;* 
but he also foretold that in seventy years the judgments of God 
should overtake Babylon and bring about the deliverance and 
the return of the exiles;® and the same prophet predicted 
the death of the false prophet Hananiah in the course of the 
year.’ ® Various items might be added to this list. Hosea, 
for example, foretold the downfall of Samaria at the hands of 
the Assyrians.’ Micah predicted the destruction of Jerusalem 
and the Babylonian exile.’ Isaiah declared in the days of 
Hezekiah that the royal treasures and princes should be carried 
off to Babylon.2 The utter desolation prepared for Babylon 
was graphically described by Isaiah,!° and Nahum portrayed 
the like fate for Nineveh. 

In the case of Christ, foresight of the future must be 
regarded as harmonious at once with His lofty personality 
and with His unclouded intercourse with the Father. As 
regards the remaining circle of predictions, when we observe 
that their authors gave, in general, tokens of an intimate com- 
munion with God, it seems by far more reasonable to suppose 
here the work of the revealing Spirit than a series of merely 
human forecasts. Apparent failures of prophecies to meet a 
proper fulfillment cannot prove that there were no genuine or 
authoritative predictions. So far as not accounted for by a 

1 Isa, vii. 7, 16, 2 Isa. vil. 18-25, vili. 5-7. 

8 Isa. x. 33, 34, xiv. 24-27, xxix. 7, 8, xxx. 27~—33, xxxi. 5-9, xxxvii. 33-35. 

4 Jer. v. 15-17, xv. I-4, xxi, I-10. 

§ Jer. xvi. 14, 15, xxv. II, 12, xxx. 18-20, xxxii. 42-44. 

© Jer. xxviii. 16. 8 Micah iii. 12, iv. 10. 0 Tsaiah xiii, 

7 Hosea viii., ix. 3. 9 Isa, xxxix; 2 Kings xx, 14-17. 


REVELATION. 108 


conditional element in prophecy, they would simply show that 
the prophetical spirit did not always operate under the fullest 
illumination. After all necessary abatement has been made it 
remains a significant distinction of the biblical revelation that 
the element of premonition which runs through so large a 
portion of its content reaches up, at one point and another, into 
the region of a supernatural foresight. 


VII. — THe EvipENcCE FURNISHED BY MIRACLES. 


To one who accepts the fact of prophecy there can be no 
insuperable difficulty as respects the fact of miracles. They 
belong in common to the category of special revelations, and 
all the considerations which were urged at the beginning of 
this chapter for the credibility of such an order of revelations 
are as available for establishing the possibility of the one as of 
the other. No good reason can be assigned why the same 
God who elevates expectation and foresight above the plane 
of nature in the minds of the prophets may not manifest in 
external nature an energy which is above the plane of regular 
physical causation. Special revelation in the latter sphere 
cannot be more difficult than in the former. 

As appears from the foregoing sentences, the term miracles 
is taken here in the limited sense which it has in current 
usage, and denotes that form of the supernatural which has its 
theatre in the sphere of sense-perceptions. Its significance is 
well expressed by Dorner as follows: “ Miracles are sensuously 
cognizable events not comprehensible on the ground of the 
causality of nature and the given system of nature as such, 
but essentially on the ground of God’s free action alone.” ! 

Freedom and power supply the necessary conditions of 
miracles. As free personalities, men are able to produce in- 


1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 55. 


106 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


numerable changes in the external world which the laws of 
nature, left to themselves, would never bring about. How 
shall that which lies within the competency of men be placed 
beyond the reach of the Divine Being? If God is free per- 
sonality, nothing can be clearer than that He is able to work 
directly in the sphere of nature, and to work with a power 
which, transcending the human or creaturely measure, gener- 
ates the miracle. Such working, supposing it to subserve a 
high moral purpose, would be in no sense eccentric, unnatural, 
or self-contradictory. It would rather be an exhibition of the 
eccentric and the unnatural if impersonal nature should be 
treated as though it were an end rather than an instrument, 
and its inviolability should be set above the necessities of the 
kingdom of righteousness. Doubtless the system of nature 
must have steadfastness and relative inviolability in order to 
accomplish its end. Without this character it could serve 
as no proper theatre for the subsistence and the education 
of the race. The miracle, however, does not interfere with 
this character in nature. It displaces and subverts no nat- 
ural law. 

As the free working of men introduces effects into nature 
without any injury to the integrity of the system, so also may 
the free working of God. The higher range of the effects in 
the latter case, which entitles them to be called miracles, makes 
no difference. The greatest miracle is as harmless as the least 
physical expression of man’s free agency. Its introduction 
makes no jar, and when once introduced its total physical 
result blends harmoniously with the system of things. As 
when a man by his free choice casts a branch into a stream, 
it is borne on in accordance with the laws of nature, though 
those laws might never have brought it into the stream, so 
the physical effect of a miraculous working enters the stream 
of natural causes, and is borne on with its ceaseless flow. The 
stream neither generates the effect nor is turned aside by it ; 
it simply takes up what is brought to it by divine interposition. 





REVELATION. 107 


Miracles, then, in no wise undermine nature, and it can only 
be asked that divine prudence should so regulate their con- 
ditions that they shall not undermine a healthy reliance in. 
men upon natural laws or the ordinary processes of the physi- 
cal world. To secure this end it is necessary that miracles 
should be exceptional, and at that should be linked only with 
serious occasions. 

Among the criteria of genuine miracles, and conditions of 
their evidential value, are to be named in particular the follow- 
ing: (1) intrinsic and recognizable connection with ends that 
may be regarded as worthy of divine wisdom and benevolence ; 
(2) demonstrated efficiency to impress men healthfully, or to 
promote their moral and spiritual development ; (3) confirma- 
tion by a sufficient amount of honest and intelligent testimony. 

These three tests, it may be said without any undue dis- 
paragement of the last, belong together. Hume was, indeed, 
begging the question when he arrayed experience against testi- 
mony, and assumed that the former is so opposed to miracles 
as to completely negative the force of the latter in their favor. 
On that basis, nothing new or extraordinary could be made 
credible by testimony, which is just the same as saying that 
ordinary experience can reasonably be made the measure of all 
possible experience. Since by hypothesis miracles are excep- 
tional events, experience of them must also be exceptional ; 
and the force of this exceptional experience cannot, therefore, 
be regarded as nullified by the general lack of experience. 
Unless it be tacitly assumed that miracles are intrinsically 
improbable under any and all conditions, testimony may con- 
ceivably establish a balance in their favor. The assumption 
in question, however, is something which has never been estab- 
lished, and is always put to flight before the thought of a 
Divine Person who holds a free relation to nature. Still, the 
virtue of testimony is by no means such as to be independent 
of all conditions. No divine act can contradict divine right- 
eousness. By the verdict of the Bible, no impure wonder- 


108 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


worker has any claim to credence. All marvels, in proportion 
as they are not plainly linked with holy ends, are properly 
subject to doubt, while those which are discovered to be antag- 
onistic to moral interests are but lying wonders, products of 
human or diabolical fraud. In general, it may be affirmed 
that an increased demand is placed upon testimony in the 
measure that any supposed case of miracles fails to meet either 
of the other two tests. 

If, now, we apply our tests to the gospel miracles, it will 
not take long to determine that the first two are, in general, 
fully satisfied by these events. They are consistent with the 
divine holiness. They manifest divine love and compassion. 
They enter as congruous elements into the most perfect life that 
was ever lived among men. They stand in natural relation to 
the pure and lofty teaching of Christ ; indeed, the two are so in- 
timately linked, in many cases, that a separation is impossible 
without a grievous mutilation of the evangelical narrative. 
The gospel miracles exhibit, also, the fitting measure of spirit- 
ual potency. Through their harmonious relation to the per- 
son and message of Christ they are made permanently edify- 
ing, awakening, and consoling to the human spirit. They are 
a veritable factor in the spiritual life of men, and must remain 
so as long as the gospel has any power in the world. 

An examination of the testimony which vouches for the 
gospel miracles will likewise indicate that they do not lack the 
needful basis. That this testimony cannot easily be dislodged 
is shown, in the first place, by the failure of the cardinal at- 
tempts to construe the life of Christ while putting a negative 
upon His miracles. The attempt of Paulus to eliminate all 
supernatural elements from the Gospels by pronouncing them 
honest but uncritical interpretations of natural events has long 
since been condemned as artificial. It also impinges upon 
the explicit testimony of Christ, contained in passages that 
have as distinctive marks of genuineness as any that are on 
record, such, for example, as the reply which was made to the 


REVELATION. 109 


messengers sent by John the Baptist. This is so thoroughly 
in the style and spirit of Jesus that he who puts it aside goes 
far toward removing all historic ground from under his feet, 
and needs to ponder by what magic a story of such beauty, 
symmetry, and life-like reality as is that of Christ’s ministry 
ever came to be fashioned. Scarcely more successful is the 
mythical theory of Strauss. This assumes that, by a gradual 
process, expectations respecting the office of the Messiah, 
which had been instilled into the popular mind, were uncon- 
sciously objectified, and took on the garb of a miraculous his- 
tory. But if these expectations that the Messiah would work 
miracles were so vital a thing, how did it happen that Jesus 
obtained any recognition as the Messiah if no miracles were 
wrought by Him? How did the people so completely triumph 
over the chill of disappointment as to put in place of a dismal 
blank a glowing account of miraculous deeds? Moreover, the 
theory of Strauss, equally with that of Paulus, overrides pas- 
sages in the Gospels which have as clear marks of genuineness 
as any that can be selected, and so logically issues in a help- 
less nihilism, the vapid conclusion that nothing is known of 
the historical character who produced the mightiest effects 
that ever emanated from a single life. The shortcomings of 
his theory were not wholly hid from Strauss himself, and 
ultimately he revised it by giving considerable scope to the 
hypothesis of invented reports. An hypothesis still more 
violent appears with Renan. Stripped of its rhetorical gloss, 
Renan’s expedient for blotting out the record of miracles is 
the sacrifice of the moral integrity of Jesus. Not able to 
close his eyes to the fact that Jesus sanctioned belief in the 
reputed miracles, he concludes that He accommodated Himself 
to the unwelcome demand enforced by popular delusion, and 
took up the réle of a half-hearted wonder worker. Thus the 
unsparing censor of every covert form of wickedness, the one 





1 Luke vii. 19-23. 


IIo LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


who denounced sin without respect of persons, the teacher 
whose words and example have ceaseless power to vitalize 
conscience and to persuade to holiness, descended to un- 
worthy thaumaturgic arts! A speculative antipathy to the 
supernatural which flies to this extreme of the unnatural has 
sufficiently judged itself in the sight of all sober minds. 

The original theory of Strauss supposes the stories of 
miracles to have sprung up beyond the circle of the primitive 
disciples. But there are good reasons for deeming this sup- 
position utterly unhistorical, and for regarding the primitive 
disciples as witnesses for the miraculous deeds of their Master, 
as they were, undoubtedly, for His resurrection. Every argu- 
ment for the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel makes 
of course for this conclusion. As regards the Synoptical 
Gospels the unmistakable tendency of recent criticism is to 
affirm that their groundwork was furnished at least in large 
part with the knowledge and coéperation of the primitive dis- 
ciples. According to a widely current theory, Mark’s Gospel 
served as an important factor in the basis of the Gospels by 
Matthew and Luke. Now, an early and credible tradition 
represents that Mark stood in close relation with Peter and 
depended largely upon his testimony. It is concluded, more- 
over, that both our canonical Matthew and Luke made use 
of a document which may be identified with the Logia of the 
Apostle Matthew, written originally in Hebrew or Aramaic. 
It is true that this document is supposed to have been occupied 
mainly with Christ’s discourses. But, then, various of these 
discourses were so connected with miracles that they could 
not be reported intelligibly without reference to them. Thus 
the literary criticism of the Gospels gives good reason for as- 
suming that these writings, as we have them, exhibit in their 
reports of Christ’s miracles substantially the fruit of apostolic 
testimony. The sobriety also with which they treat the sub- 
ject of miracles argues not a little for an apostolic basis. 
Their tone is harmonious with the supposition that the report 


REVELATION. Itt 


of judicial eye-witnesses was back of their narratives. That 
their composition was not dominated by a greed for the mar- 
vellous is seen in the fact that not a single miracle is ascribed 
to John the Baptist, and not less by the fact that the canonical 
Gospels, in striking contrast with the spurious Gospels of a 
later date, ascribe no miracles to the youth or early manhood 
of Jesus, but make all His miracles incidental to His public 
ministry. The evidence contained in the New Testament 
Epistles is, moreover, fully consonant with the verdict that 
apostolic testimony was distinctively the basis for the reports 
of the gospel miracles. The Epistle to the Hebrews, written 
at all events within the first century, and very likely before the 
year 70, assumes that the preaching of the gospel was accom- 
panied by miraculous attestations.! Paul testifies to the same 
effect in more than one instance.” As appears from his lan- 
guage,®> as well as from the Book of Acts, the apostolic 
miracles were regarded as wrought by the virtue of Christ. 
Now it is not natural to suppose that the very men who 
claimed to be working miracles in the name of Christ believed 
themselves to be doing an order of works in confirmation of 
His gospel which He had never done Himself. The whole 
New Testament picture contradicts such a supposition. The 
words which Peter is reported to have spoken on the day of 
Pentecost, when he described Jesus as a man “approved of 
God by mighty works and signs and wonders,” give the only 
credible representation of the apostolic standpoint. The eye- 
witnesses of Christ’s deeds, His daily companions and associates 
during the years of His ministry, the men whose sterling 
good sense prepared them for the difficult enterprise of found- 
ing the Church, and whose intensity of honest conviction fur- 
nished them for the painful ordeal of martyrdom, appear as 
the responsible vouchers for the gospel miracles. To ask for 





1 Hebrews ii. 3, 4. 
2 Gal. iii. §; Rom. xv. 18-20; 1 Cor. xii. 28, 29; 2 Cor. xii. 12. 
8 Rom, xv. 18. 


112 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


more competent testimony would savor at once of caprice 
and ingratitude. 

As regards the Old Testament miracles, our threefold test 
is not so distinctly applicable. Prophecy is undoubtedly a 
more convincing credential for the older dispensation than 1s 
miracle. Nevertheless, the great events which are reported 
to have brought about the deliverance of the Israelites from 
Egyptian bondage meet in a fair measure the tests of genuine 
miracles. To make Israel a subject of special tuition, a priestly 
nation, and so ultimately a medium of blessing to the whole 
world, was an end worthy of divine benevolence and wisdom. 
The supernatural intervention had also a suitable result. It 
was spiritually potent, a vital factor in Israelitish piety through 
the ensuing ages. As to the testimony for the miracles which 
led up to and accompanied the exodus, the uncertain date of 
various portions of the Pentateuch hinders a confident appeal 
to eye-witnesses, and the actual power of the alleged wonders 
in the national consciousness remains their most authentic cer- 
tificate. For the later miracles of the Old Testament some- 
what less can be said. To rescue the nation from threatened 
apostasy and thus to conserve its high vocation may have been, 
indeed, a sufficient occasion for miraculous intervention. Some 
of the recorded miracles too have a very worthy setting, as, for 
example, the attestation which crowned Elijah’s great contest 
with the priests of Baal. But this can scarcely be said for all 
of them. In respect of a considerable proportion, also, it is 
not clearly apparent that they meet the test of nobility and 
permanency of spiritual effect. Instead, therefore, of render- 
ing any positive support to biblical authority, they need 
rather to be supported by that authority, if they are to hold 
an indubitable place in the category of facts. 

The concession that some of the miracles recorded in the 
Bible are not adapted to render any positive help to a rational 
faith in revelation does not of course invalidate the evidence 
from miracle. In the gospel miracles, as we have seen, the 


REVELATION. 113 


highest tests of genuineness are grandly met. They are also 
relatively satisfied in the extraordinary events which raised 
Israel from an estate of slavery into the position of the Lord’s 
elect people. The record of miracles joins therefore with that 
of prophecy in attesting the presence of a divine element with- 
in the circle of the biblical system. 

The objection which may be drawn from the facile multipli- 
cation of stories of miracles in the annals of reputed saints is 
to be answered by a reference to the tests which have been 
laid down. In general, these alleged miracles fail utterly to 
meet the first two tests. Many of them are mere eccentrici- 
ties and demean the notion of the divine administration. 
While they may have fulfilled a certain office for ignorance 
and superstition, they can make no claim to true spiritual 
potency. The whole mass of them could be blotted out of 
religious literature without eclipsing any real light in the 
spiritual firmament. Indeed, it would be a clear gain if the 
contemplation which is absorbed in them could be carried over 
to the loftier and more healthful region of the beautiful and 
gracious works of Christ. A heavy burden is thus thrown 
upon the testimony in their behalf, and as this is very often 
quite unsubstantial, the cases of well attested miracles proper 
—as distinguished from striking though natural instances of 
healing through the reaction of the mind upon the body — are 
far from numerous. In general, it may be said that the eccle- 
siastical miracles are an appendix to the apocryphal rather 
than: to the canonical Gospels, and, like the former, serve by 
contrast to emphasize the sobriety, reasonableness, and simple 
majesty of the genuine evangelical narratives.! 


1 Compare Charles W. Rishell, The Foundations of the Christian Faith, 1899, 
» PP. 259-264, 


I14 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


VITI.— Tuer SusjEcTIVE PROOF, OR THE EVIDENCE Fur- 
NISHED BY THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 


With the more objective credentials of the biblical revela- 
tion we may join the subjective proof —the ineffaceable im- 
pression of truth and authority which the Bible makes in the 
Christian consciousness. In the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries this evidence was styled the ¢estémontum Spiritus 
Sancti, and was regarded very commonly as the crowning 
proof of revelation. A more fitting name for the evidence 
might doubtless have been chosen, since the operation of the 
Holy Spirit in producing faith in the Bible is not a subject 
for direct insight. It is more prudent, therefore, to appeal to 
the common facts of the Christian consciousness, or inward 
experience, than to the act of an unseen agent which is in- 
ferred rather than immediately perceived. 

To those who stand outside the circle of an inner appropria- 
tion of Christianity the argument from Christian experience 
may not be very convincing. It remains nevertheless a great 
fact that the claim of the Bible to be the book of salvation is 
in such perfect accord with the experience of innumerable 
believers, who find along the lines of biblical truth the most 
salutary self-discovery, the purest consolation, the deepest 
peace, and the most ennobling incentives which come into 
their lives. That which is thus fruitful of the highest and 
best may reasonably be regarded as peculiarly rich in divine 
treasure. Coleridge spoke soberly when he said: “In the 
Bible there is more that finds me than I have experienced in 
all other books put together ; the words of the Bible find me 
at greater depths of my being; and whatever thus finds me 
brings with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded 
from the Holy Spirit.” 

This argument, it may be noticed, approves the distinctive 
teachings of the Bible as worthy of a divine source, rather 
than affords a ground of judging all its parts and items. As 


REVELATION. 115 


Mead appropriately remarks: “ A Christian man will find in 
the Scriptures as a whole a spirit which seems to him to be 
of divine origin. His own spirit, illumed by the Divine Spirit, 
will discern in the Scriptures the marks of a superhuman in- 
fluence that must have been concerned in the production of 
them. He will be conscious of a peculiar stimulus and illumi- 
nation as coming from the contents of the Bible. But no 
religious experience can go to the length of enabling a man 
to recognize the divine inspiration and authority of every part 
of the biblical books.” } 

The objection that, inasmuch as Christian experience or 
the facts of Christian consciousness are founded on the Bible,’ 
the correspondence between the two is accounted for as being 
in the line of natural causation, and therefore is not of eviden- 
tial force, neglects important features of the case. It is not 
merely the truth of some general correspondence that has to 
be noted here; the high order of the facts of Christian con- 
sciousness and the extent to which they harmonize with funda- 
mental teachings of revelation come into consideration. Asa 
natural result of interaction something in the way of corres- 
pondence between oracles and life may subsist in an ethnic 
system ; but this does not prevent the high plane of fact and 
correspondence belonging to Christian experience and truth 
from being specially significant. A token is legitimately 
found here that the Bible fundamentally corresponds to man’s 
ethical and religious nature and needs. 


IX.— THE EVIDENCE BASED ON A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF 
SACRED Books. 


Fair-minded and competent scholarship will not deny that 
truth of a high order is contained in the written oracles of 
Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, 


1 Supernatural Revelation, p. 321. 


116 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


and Mohammedanism severally. At the same time, scholar- 
ship of this stamp will grant that a distinct primacy among 
sacred books belongs to the Christian’s Bible. The detailed 
proof of this proposition will not, of course, be expected here. 
Only the comprehensive treatise on the subject of religions 
can render that proof. A brief statement of three or four 
significant points is the most that can appropriately be 
admitted. 

1. The best that is contained in any body or group of 
ethnic scriptures can easily be matched from the content of 
the Bible. The earnest spirit in which Zoroastrianism deals 
with the antithesis between good and evil, the stress of Con- 
fucianism upon filial piety and upon just dealing between man 
and man, Lao-tse’s emphasis upon the supreme reason and the 
life inwardly conformed thereto, the benevolence, humaneness, 
and resignation inculcated by Buddhism, the warm apprecia- 
tion of the divine immanence which appears at various points 
in Brahmanic or Hindu thinking, the majesty with which the 
Koran invests the sovereignty of God, and its strenuous insist- 
ence upon the duty of complete surrender — all of these have 
their parallel in the Bible to such an extent that it cannot 
fairly be charged with a deficit as respects any one of them. 

2. In the ethnic scriptures, as a body, the gold of moral 
and religious truth is combined with a much greater mass of 
comparatively worthless material than is to be found in the 
Bible. While the latter, especially in its Old Testament di- 
vision, contains sections which are intrinsically of no great 
significance, and which acquire import only as it is transferred 
to them by the religious mind out of the wealth of its own 
ideas and associations, relatively it runs on a high plane, and 
is replete with an edifying content. 

3. The Bible is distinguished among all sacred books by its 
rounded presentation of truth! Herein lies its peculiar pre 


1 A partial illustration of this fact has been given in Section IV of this chapter. 


REVELATION. 117 


eminence. It does not sacrifice any high interest or truth by 
exclusive or exaggerated attention to a competing interest or 
truth. It respects proportion, and provides for the organic 
relation of part with part. While it exalts the obligation 
of divine law, it magnifies the depths of divine mercy. 
While it opens up an entrancing view of the life beyond, 
it does not neglect to enforce the duty of bringing the 
kingdom of heaven into this world. It profoundly empha- 
sizes the ethical, and also profoundly emphasizes the spe- 
cifically religious. The thought of sacrificing the one to 
the other lies wholly outside its domain. It is distant by 
a whole diameter from the Brahmanic sentiment expressed 
in this sentence: “No guilt taints a Brahmana who possesses 
learning, practices austerities, and daily mutters sacred texts, 
though he may constantly commit sinful acts.’’! Equally re- 
mote is it from the pale regard of Confucianism for the thought 
of God, and from the ignoring of the divine which was charac- 
teristic of original Buddhism. As strenuous on the side of 
ethics as is either of these systems at the best, it provides for 
the vitalizing of ethical conviction by its powerful inculcation 
of the thought of a perfect Being, and of man’s intimate rela- 
tion to Him. It at once safeguards religion against ceremoni- 
alism and artificiality by its stress upon the ethical, and deepens 
ethical life by the inspiration which comes from high religious 
points of view. A more perfect or a more important harmony 
was never witnessed than that consummated through the union 
of the ethical and the religious in the spirit and the teaching 
of the New Testament. 

4. The Bible has an advantage over all the ethnic scriptures 
in the manner in which its system of truth is focused ina lofty 
personality. The historical demonstration of spiritual verities, 
in and through Jesus Christ, provides a ground of conviction 
and hope more substantial and efficacious by far than is offered 


1 Sacred Books of the East, American edition, Vol. II, Part II, p. 120. 
9 


118 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


in any non-Christian system. In the legendary attachments 
to Buddhism, it is true, great import is awarded to the person- 
ality of Gautama. But it was no part of his own thought that 
men should inhere in him as the branch in the vine, and on 
the plane of authentic history there is no claim that the spirit- 
ual kingdom is focused in the Buddhistic sage after the man- 
ner in which the Gospels represent it to be focused in Him 
who bore the name of the Son of God as well as that of the 
Son of Man. 

It is doubtless possible for an objector to insinuate here the 
notion that this superiority of the Bible falls short of accredit- 
ing it as containing the ultimate system of truth. The plea 
may be made that the Bible simply represents, among the 
transient phases of the evolution of religion, the one which 
has happened to be favored with the best conditions. It will 
be time, however, to concede any weight to this plea when the 
race, or some part of it, shall appear to have gained a better 
level of ethical and religious principles than was character- 
istic of the illuminated consciousness of Jesus Christ. What 
must strike the clear-sighted student of history is the exceed- 
ing difficulty, on the part even of elect souls, to keep up to the 
level of gospel truth in the whole circle of their ethical and 
religious thinking. 


X.—— THE PROPER LIMITS OF THE BIBLE, OR THE TESTS OF 
CANONICITY. 


A glance at the various evidences that have been adduced 
will serve, it is believed, to foster the impression that the proof 
for the Bible lies in its contents —that is, in the spiritual 
wealth of the factors which it contains, and in their harmoni- 
ous relation to each other — rather than in any form of external 
attestation. Even the miracle, as has been seen, is most ap- 
propriately regarded as a part of the rounded whole of revela- 


REVELATION... 119 


tion. Whatever it may have been to the contemporary gen- 
eration, for us it is adapted to establish conviction in the 
biblical system only as it fulfills a function of revelation, 
only as it is harmoniously connected with the process of 
sacred history, and serves to disclose the character of God or 
to illustrate His redemptive purpose. Outside of this re- 
lation and office, it does not generate faith in the Bible, 
but rather needs an already existing faith to provide for its 
acceptance. 

From this general point of viewit is not difficult to discover 
what ought to be the dominant consideration in settling the 
canon. The prime test of the canonical character of any 
book must be found in its contents. It may fairly be expected 
of an approved book that its contents should be, at least very 
largely, in harmonious relation with the system of revelation 
contained in the Bible as a whole, and should, moreover, either 
directly or indirectly, make some contribution to the complete- 
ness of that system, a vain duplication being contrary to the 
principle of economy. 

A secondary test of the canonical character of a book may 
be located in the consensus of opinion, as being for or against 
its claims. This must be reckoned subsidiary to the foregoing, 
since a consensus of opinion can have real weight only in pro- 
portion to the legitimacy of the grounds on which it rests. In 
so far as it is determined by arbitrary authority, by the mere 
desire for personal or corporate convenience, or by an indolent 
assent to custom and tradition, it lacks conclusiveness. Its 
reliability is measured by the amount of scholarship and piety 
which enter into its basis. Scholarship and piety united, and 
continuously rendering a concordant verdict, deserve much 
credence. But neither scholarship nor piety can properly be 
satisfied with anything artificial. To both it must appear that 
the contents of a book which rightfully claims a place in the 
Bible are agreeable to the high level and holy purpose of the 
biblical revelation as a whole. Thus an analysis of the grounds 


120 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


which give real authority to a consensus of opinion takes us 
back to our primary test. The fact of a consensus, taken by 
itself, is simply a token, not a complete proof, that a book has 
the character which entitles it to a place in the canon. 

It may be thought that a ground of judgment can be found 
in the relation of men of prophetic or apostolic vocation to the 
books of the Bible. But this test cannot be satisfactorily 
applied to the whole area of revelation. There are important 
portions of the Bible which are not known to have emanated 
from either prophet or apostle; nor can it be proved that they 
were reviewed and distinctly sanctioned by the one or the 
other. Two at least of the Gospels, the Book of Acts, the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, and considerable portions of the Old 
Testament fall under this description. 

From these premises it seems to follow that a perfectly 
definite standard of canonicity is not within our reach. This 
is to be granted. There is no help for a margin of indefinite- 
ness, so long as the figment of ecclesiastical infallibility is 
repudiated. For, it is quite certain that no specific act of 
divine authority can be pointed out as fixing either the Old 
or the New Testament canon. The right of some of the con- 
stituents of the New Testament to a place in the canon was 
an open question in Catholic Christendom for two centuries or 
more; and though the limits of the Old Testament were in all 
likelihood practically fixed in Jewish thought a century before 
the coming of Christ, at least as regards the acceptance of 
those books that are now universally received by the Christian 
Church, discussion of the subject was not reckoned imperti- 
nent for some time longer. In either case there was evidently 
an utter lack of consciousness that any unmistakable sign or 
decree from God had determined the matter. It is true that 
a general guarantee for the Old Testament is contained in the 
New. ‘The references of Christ and the apostles show that 
they viewed the oracles of the older dispensation as containing 
authentic antecedents of the new, but these references can- 


REVELATION. I2I 


not be regarded as involving a decisive judgment on each and 
every subordinate part of the Old Testament. 

The books in the accepted Hebrew canon which are most 
exposed to doubt are Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of 
Solomon, That these books are not quoted in the New Testa- 
ment need not be greatly emphazied. The fact is indeed well- 
nigh exceptional.! But this may imply nothing more than that 
the subject-matter of these books was not such as naturally to 
be suggestive to the New Testament writers. It is not neces- 
sary, likewise, to take much account of the indications that 
these books were anciently subject to a measure of suspicion. 
There was some doubt respecting all three of them in Jewish 
circles. Among the early Christians, the Book of Esther was 
challenged or ignored by several writers. It does not appear 
in Melito’s list of Old Testament books, which was composed 
about the year170. Athanasius classed it among uncanonical 
writings, and other theologians of the fourth century, such as 
Gregory Nazianzen and Amphilochius, omitted it from their 
lists. The same may be said of Leontius in the fifth century, 
Nicephorus in the ninth century included it with books of 
doubtful claim.2, This makes an appreciable amount of excep- 
tion ; but still it is not necessarily regarded as very formidable. 
The greatest difficulty with this, as with the other books in 
question, is in the contents. Some of the items in the Book 
of Esther border upon the incredible, and the feeling with 
which it is charged seems to pass beyond the permissible 
measure of patriotic fervor into a fanatical animosity towards 
the enemies of the Jews and an intemperate glorification of 
the position and importance of the latter within the Persian 


1 While it is true that Obadiah, Nahum, Ezra and Nehemiah are not quoted, the 
first two are indirectly recognized, since the twelve minor prophets were anciently 
reckoned as one book. As for Ezra and Nehemiah they are thought to have 
made primarily one book with the Chronicles, and in the apostolic age were 
probably so ‘closely associated therewith that the recognition of the last implied 
their acceptance. 

2 Ryle, The Canon of the Old Testament. 


122 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


empire.! Ecclesiastes has a pessimistic trend that is not only 
contrary to the tone of the New Testament, but also contrary 
to the persistent hopefulness of the Hebrew prophets. Only 
on the supposition that it was designed to sketch human life 
from a special standpoint, namely, from the standpoint of the 
disappointment and weariness naturally induced by a career of 
luxury and worldliness, like that of the unfaithful Solomon, 
can its tone be justified. The Book of Ecclesiastes, it must 
be granted, does not itself thus limit the import of the picture 
which it sets forth. However, the interpreter is not forbidden 
to take it as representative of a special mood, and in so doing 
can find it to some extent a book of edification. As respects 
the Song of Solomon, the objection is the lack of any religious 
significance in its contents. Such a significance has indeed 
been invented for the poem. Through the drapery of its 
fervid phrases there has been discovered the love of Jehovah 


1 Jt makes an unpleasant impression to observe that “The little ones and 
women” of the opponents of the Jews were made lawful objects of destruction in 
the decree written apparently according to the wish and under the dictation of 
Mordecai. (Esther viii. 7-11.) Scarcely more pleasing is the record that Esther 
was not satisfied with one day’s slaughter in Shushan, but requested of the king a 
second harvest of human heads. (ix. 12-15.) The candid reader can hardly fail 
to yield assent to this verdict: “ If the details are correct, this only goes to enhance 
the moral difficulties of the book. The fierce Jewish vindictiveness, which slaughters 
thousands of innocent people in so-called self-defense, breaks out into an after- 
math of unnecessary carnage.” (R,. F. Horton, Revelation and the Bible, p. 208.) 
It has indeed been alleged that the slaughter was necessary to conserve the exis- 
tence of the chosen people. But the plea is not convincing. Under all natural 
conditions the perpetration of so great a slaughter by a small minority in a great 
empire would, by reason of the burning resentment evoked, have been a sure 
guarantee of the extermination of that minority. If it be presumed that a super- 
natural awe came over the population of the empire to restrain their hand, it must 
be answered that an instrumentality of that kind would have had quite as easy a 
task to fulfill without the slaughter as with the same. 

A judgment on the historical character of the book is given by A. H. Sayce in 
the following terms: “Only one conclusion seems possible: the story of Esther is 
an example of Jewish Haggadah which has been founded on one of those semi- 
historical tales of which the Persian Chronicles seem to be full.” (The Higher 
Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, pp. 474, 475.) 


REVELATION. 123 


for Israel or the relation of Christ to His Church. But it 
contradicts all biblical analogy and stands in the face of all 
psychological possibility to suppose that any Israelitish poet 
could have consciously used the luxuriant and sensuous imagery 
of these love-strains to illustrate divine relations. It is plainly 
a poem of human loves. It is beautiful, however, in its kind, 
and may not be out of place in the canon, especially if Ewald’s 
theory can be sustained, that three characters rather than two 
are contemplated by the poem, and that the Shulamite, instead 
of responding to the much-wedded Solomon, is viewed as per- 
sisting in her attachment to a country lover. 

It scarcely needs to be stated that Christian dogmatics 
would lose nothing by placing these books on the border of 
the canon, if not outside of the same. As the lack of any 
quotation from them in the New Testament implies, their sub- 
ject-matter has very little significance for Christian doctrine. 
But while they are not needed for authority they may still 
subserve a useful purpose of a secondary kind, as supplying 
various texts which are not objectionable in themselves, and 
which have a certain value for religious feeling through the 
power of long-continued associations. This much, at any rate, 
may be said for Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. 

Objections quite as weighty as those which invite to a 
challenge of the proper canonicity of the book of Esther may 
be cited against a large part of the Old Testament Apocry- 
pha. As respects the test of general acceptance, the latter, 
indeed, stand distinctly below the plane of the former. They 
never fairly won the acknowledgment of the Jews. In Pales- 
tine they were continuously excluded from the canon. In Egypt 
the Jews, for an interval, gave them a semi-canonical stand- 
ing, and included them with the older books in the Septuagint 
version ; but later they seem to have reverted to the position 
of their brethren in Palestine. The early Christians, as heirs 


1 Riehm, Linleitung, IT. 375. 


124 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


to the Septuagint version, naturally took its full list of books, 
and drew no definite line of distinction between the Apocry- 
pha and the strict Hebrew canon. But investigation ulti- 
mately had its effect, and the Greek fathers of the fourth and 
fifth centuries generally excluded the entire Apocrypha, ex- 
cept the little Book of Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. 
In the Latin Church, the precipitate judgment of Augustine 
and some of the Roman bishops started a current in favor of 
the Apocryphal books, which finally issued, at the Council 
of Trent, in the sixteenth century, in the distinct assertion of 
their full canonical worth. In the interim, however, a succes- 
sion of scholars had rendered a contrary verdict. Jerome dis- 
criminated against the Apocrypha. The. same position was 
taken by Bede and Alcuin in the eighth century, by Rabanus 
Maurus in the ninth, by Peter of Cluny, Hugo and Richard 
of St. Victor, Rupert of Deutz, and John of Salisbury in the 
twelfth, by Hugo of St. Caro in the thirteenth, by Nicholas of 
Lyra in the fourteenth, by Antonius, Archbishop of Florence, 
in the fifteenth, by Cardinal Ximenes, Cardinal Cajetan, Pico 
of Mirandola, and others, in the sixteenth.! The judgment of 
Protestants was adverse, from the first, to conceding unquali- 
fied canonicity to the Apocrypha. A large score of distrust 
and rejection thus stands against the apocryphal books of the 
Old Testament. And in the case of most of them this is 
abundantly justified by their contents. Tobit, though con- 
taining an interesting story, pays altogether too much tribute 
to superstitious magic,” and to the atoning virtue of almsgiv- 
ing.’ It also palliates mendacity by putting falsehoods into 
the mouth of the angel, who acts as one of the chief char- 
acters.‘ Judith is a romance, which deals fantastically with 
history and geography,° and is occupied with the celebra- 


1 Riehm, Finleitung, II. 391, 392. 5 Tobit iv. 10, xii. 9. 

? Tobit iii. 8, vi. 8, 16 [19], viii. 3, xi. 4, 8. ‘Tobit v. 6 [8], 12 [18]. 

® Eichhorn, Einleitung in die Apocryphischen Schriften; Bissel, Commen- 
tary on the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. Sayce says: ‘‘The decipher- 


REVELATION. 125 


tion of a deed of treacherous vengeance —a celebration not 
wholly unlike some passages in the Book of Judges, but ex- 
pressive rather of the crudest ethics of the Old Testament 
than of its best standard. The additions to the Book of 
Daniel are very poor specimens of historical invention. The 
formal prayer and psalm put into the mouths of the Hebrews 
in. the fiery furnace are incongruous with their intense situa- 
tion. The story of Susanna stands in very artificial relation 
to the Book of Daniel, and contains, among other uncritical 
items, the assumption that the Jews at Babylon were free, in 
the early years of their captivity, to exercise the power of life 
and death. The reputed history of Bel and the great dragon 
is a crude fable, which caps the climax of superstition and ab- 
surdity by picturing the prophet Habakkuk as being lifted up 
by the hair of his head, and transported through the air from 
Judzea to Babylon, in order that he might be made to present 
to the hungry Daniel, in the den of lions, the food which he 
was about to take to some reapers in the field. The Book of 
Baruch is loose in its historical references, misplacing the era 
of the return of the sacred vessels belonging to the temple, 
and inconsistently speaking of offerings being still made. in 
the ruined temple at Jerusalem. In its general contents the 
book is unobjectionable, but, as being little else than a com- 
pilation from other Old Testament books, it contributes nothing 
of real value to the canon. The Epistle of Jeremiah, which is 
given in the Vulgate as the sixth chapter of Baruch, represents 
another late attempt to fill out the history relating to the cap- 
tivity. Its elaborate cautions against Babylonian idolatry are 
artificial and jejune as compared with the authentic words of 
Jeremiah. In Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom we 
have writings that come nearer to the level of canonical worth. 


ment of the cuneiform inscriptions has finally destroyed all claim on the part of 
the Books of Tobit and Judith to be considered as history, and has banished them 
to the realm of Haggadah.” (The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the 
Monuments.) 


126 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


Both of them occasionally pass the limits of sobriety, or in- 
dulge in questionable statements,! but in the main they are 
not unworthy specimens of the wisdom literature. Were not 
that literature so adequately represented in the Old Testament, 
apart from them, their admission to the canon, though still of 
doubtful propriety, would not be vetoed by the most of their 
contents. The First Book of Maccabees is a respectable his- 
tory of a great crisis in the fortunes of the Jewish nation. 
However, its multiplication of military details, far beyond the 
demands of religious edification, is in contrast with the pro- 
phetical handling of history. The book has also its quota of 
palpable errors, especially in its references to the affairs of out- 
side nations.2, The Second Book of Maccabees is noticeably 
inferior to the first. The rather pedantic self-consciousness 
which is manifested by its author is not in the best taste,® and 
his repeated introduction of heavenly combatants to the field 
of battle * is a palpable extravagance, even when compared with 
the contents of the very fervid narrative in the First Book of 
Maccabees. On the whole, it may be said that there are only 
three of the apochryphal books that, in virtue of their con- 
tents, have any claim to a place in the canon: and these 
three, namely, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the First Book of 
Maccabees, can more properly be included in an appendix to 
the Old Testament than within its acknowledged limits. In 
the New Testament none of these books are directly cited 
or used for confirmation of doctrine, though it has been sup- 
posed that the Epistle of James shows the influence of Ec- 
clesiasticus, and that, in the Epistle to the Hebrews and a few 
other books, a rhetorical or illustrative use is made of items 





1 Wisdom viii. 20, x. 15, xiv. 27, xvi. 20, xviii, 15-17, 24. Ecclesiasticus iii. 
30 [33], vii. 23 [25], 24 [26], viii. 12 [15], xii. 5, 10-12, xxv. 7 [9], xxx. 6, xxxi. 
27 [32, 33], xxxii. 6 [7], xlii. 5, xlvii. 3. The numbers in brackets are for the 
Douay version. . 

2 + Maccabees i. 6, viii. 7, 8, 16. 

8 2 Maccabees ii. 26-32, xv. 38 [39], 39 [40]. 

4 2 Maccabees iii. 24-27, v. 2, 3, xX. 29, 30, xi. 8, 


REVELATION. 127 


derived from the Apocrypha. The Epistle of Jude, in quoting 
the Book of Enoch, furnishes a solitary instance in the New 
Testament of a direct reference to an extra-canonical pro- 
duction. ! 


The subject of the New Testament canon affords very little 
ground for discussion. Most of the questions of authorship 
which have been raised have not been regarded as vitally affect- 
ing titles to canonicity. From the first inception of the canon, 
soon after the middle of the second century, Catholic Christians 
have been substantially agreed upon the books which may be 
regarded as constituting the organism of New Testament 
truth. For a time, it is true, there was a partial challenge of 
the Apocalypse in the East and considerable doubt respect- 
ing the Epistle to the Hebrews in the West; but ere long 
the Church became united in accepting both of these books, 
and no later generation has had any disposition to revise its 
verdict. The brevity of a few of the Epistles (Philemon, 
2 John, and 3 John) and their relatively indifferent contents 
naturally caused very scanty reference to them by early Chris- 
tian writers. This lack of external support, however, has not 
occasioned any serious objection to them. Among recent 
critics a measure of doubt has been expressed as to the apos- 
tolic authorship of the Epistle of Jude. In the case of the 
Epistle of James, a large proportion of scholars have acknowl- 
edged, in the internal marks of genuineness which it exhibits, 
a compensation for paucity of external evidences, and Luther’s 
impatience with the epistle has found scarcely an echo. 
Doubtless Luther’s keen instinct was not at fault in the dis- 


1 From our point of view, the discussion of the apocryphal additions to the 
Book of Esther is of minor concern. They are subject to criticism, however, as 
having every appearance of being additions, and, at that, not fully congruous with 
the original contents of the book. First and Second Esdras (otherwise named 
Third and Fourth Esdras, as being put in line with Ezra and Nehemiah), and the 
Third Book of Maccabees, have little claim to notice in this connection. Even the 
Council of Trent left them out of its list. 


128 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


covery that the Pauline doctrine of justification could not be 
elicited from this epistle. But if note be taken of the fact that 
an exposition of the doctrine of justification was not the prin- 
cipal intention of James, and that he approached the subject 
only to condemn an antinomian abuse of faith, his writing can 
be approved as useful and wholesome in its main trend, even 
though it does not give a well-rounded view of justification. 
The second Epistle of Peter is quite as lacking as that of 
James in the line of external evidence and is not favored with 
internal marks that are by any means conclusive for its Petrine 
origin. It is, therefore, mere exposed to doubt than any other 
book in the New Testament canon. Until its claims are more 
clearly established, it cannot prudently be treated as an apos- 
tolic writing. 


XI.— QUESTIONS OF AUTHORSHIP AS RELATED TO BIBLI- 
CAL AUTHORITY. 


Among the problems of authorship which have attracted 
much attention, those which relate to the books of the Old 
Testament cannot be regarded as vitally affecting the authority 
of the Bible in its general scope. The testimony of the Bible is 
not given so unequivocally to specific theories of the origin of 
these books that its general truthfulness and reliability depend 
upon their verification. Take for instance the much debated 
question of the authorship of the Pentateuch. Within the 
Pentateuch itself there is no assertion of the traditional theory 
that it was written in its entirety by Moses. The great law- 
giver is indeed spoken of once and again as writing down vari- 
ous matters.!_ But these statements do not necessarily have 
reference to anything more than limited portions of the Pen- 
tateuch. This is clearly the case with most of the books. A 


1 Ex, xvii, 14, xxiv. 4, xxxiv. 27; Num. xxxiii. 2; Deut. xxxi. 9, 24. 


REVELATION. 129 


long section of Deuteronomy (iv. 44—xxviii.), it is true, is 
occupied with what is described as Mosaic legislation. But 
it is to be noticed that Moses is said to have delivered orally 
to the people the contents of this legislation. As to who wrote 
the Book of Deuteronomy and incorporated into it the legis- 
lative section, no hint is given. ‘This section, moreover, may 
very well be regarded as a rather free rendering of that which 
was understood to be included in the laws of Moses. Anyone 
who is suitably apprised of the freedom which antique authors 
claimed in reporting addresses from their heroes will find very 
slight occasion to conclude that the writer of this book meant 
it to be understood that he was giving a strict verbal repro- 
duction of a Mosaic code. Ina chapter lying beyond the legis- 
lative section, Moses, it is true, is said to have written out 
his laws (xxxi. 9, 24). But that is no statement that he per- 
sonally incorporated them with the writing which we call 
Deuteronomy. Neither is it a statement that the writer of 
this book made a verbatim copy of those laws.!_ What Deuter- 
onomy really presents is a history in which Moses figures as 
chief actor and speaker. It makes absolutely no affirmation 
respecting the composer of the history. 

If we turn to the New Testament, we find nothing more 
pronounced on the authorship of the Pentateuch than a simple 
compliance with current phraseology.* In the time of Christ 
and the apostles it was customary to style one of the main 
divisions of the Old Testament the Law, or more specifically 
the Law of Moses. This had the force of a stereotyped expres- 


1 Account should be taken of the varied range of meaning which Jewish usage 
assigned to “the law.” It might denote the extended code, or the brief com- 
pendium giving only the more important constituents of the code. ‘ According to 
Deut. xxvii. 8, ‘all the words of this law’ are to be written on the plastered stones 
of Mount Ebal; and here, as Calvin points out, we can only understand the sum 
and substance of the law.” (W. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the 
Jewish Church, p. 332.) 

2 Mark xii. 26; Luke xvi. 31, xxiv. 44; Johni. 17, v. 45, 46, vii. 193 Acts iii. 
22, xxvi. 22, xxviii, 23; Rom. x. 5; 2 Cor. iii. 15. 


130 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


sion, and was as naturally used to designate what we call the 
Pentateuch, as the term “Gospels” is now used to point out 
the collection of the lives of Christ in the new Testament. 
The expression, “the Law of Moses,” may have been too 
specific to fit the precise facts of history. But if Moses was 
really the organizer of the Israelitish nation and gave the 
groundwork of its laws, it had a relative truth. Now is it 
reasonable to ask that Christ should have selected a new name 
for the first division of the Old Testament, when the one in 
actual use had at least a relative justification? Would it 
have been a mark of discretion in Him to have rebuked the 
current terminology, and to have turned aside the attention of 
His hearers from great spiritual verities to a question of author- 
ship? Surely in the swift course of His ministry, and in the 
face of weightier matters, there was no call for Him to compli- 
cate His work, and to forestall the natural course of scholarly 
investigation, by descending into the arena either of historicai 
criticism or of scientific disputation! Moreover, it is not 
altogether clear that the whole sum of historic facts was con- 
stantly present to His thought, so as to be able to shape His 
words. The constitutional relation of Christ to the divine is 
one thing ; the habitual content of that consciousness in Him, 
which lay immediately back of His communication with the 
world, is another thing. It may be assumed that His unique 
relation to the divine enabled Him to know all that was in- 


1 “ His life-work belonged to a realm which is immeasurably higher than that 
of human science. He saw the inner meaning of the world and of life, with 
whose details science is occupied. He penetrated to the heart of Old Testament 
truth and was oblivious of such questions as those of time, place, and date. Nature 
He looked upon as the revelation of the divine order and beneficence; He spoke 
often of her powers and processes, which were for His mind instinct with God; 
but He was not at all concerned to extend men’s observation of natural phenomena, 
much less to correct the popular impressions concerning them. For him it was 
quite enough to teach men to see God in nature, as it was enough to show them 
the imperishable religious truths which formed the essential substance of Old 
Testament revelation.” (Geo. B. Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, 


p- 78.) 


REVELATION. 131 


trinsically related to His vocation, without necessarily conclud- 
ing that facts beyond that circle came within the range of his 
habitual outlook. This point of view, however, does not need 
to be insisted upon in the present connection. Christ’s use 
of a current expression in referring to a main division of the 
Old Testament appears too plainly in the character of a 
natural accommodation to be regarded as involving, or design- 
ing to involve, a positive determination of a question of histor- 
ical criticism. 

If the Bible is not committed to a decisive verdict on the 
authorship of the Pentateuch, still less is it committed on 
the question of the unity of the Book of Isaiah. There is no 
testimony within the limits of the Old Testament that the last 
twenty-seven chapters were from the hand of the pre-exilian 
prophet who wrote the foregoing portion. The fact that the 
collector placed the two portions in juxtaposition is the sole 
item of responsibility which can be connected with the Old 
Testament for the opinion that they came from the same 
author. Nor does the New Testament approach any nearer 
to the rendering of a decision on the question of authorship. 
It simply represents the current mode of quotation. Even in 
the present, a full-fledged representative of the “higher criti- 
cism,” in giving out a text from any part of the book, would 
speak of it as contained in such a chapter of the Prophecy of 
Isaiah, unless perchance he should be stocked overmuch with 
foolish pedantry. An equal license cannot reasonably be 
denied to those who wrote and spoke in the first century. So 
far as the value of the Book of Isaiah is concerned, it evidently 
matters little whether it came from one or from two great 
prophets. 

Scarcely more of a critical intent is to be imputed to the 
New Testament reference to the prophet Daniel.! Whether 
the Book of Daniel in its present form was written by the dis- 


ee 


1 Matt, xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14. 


132 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


tinguished exile at Babylon, or not, it contains vivid forecasts 
of the Messianic era ; and it was in virtue of this element that 
the one citation which is recorded in the Gospels was made 
from it. That the expression cited is referred to the “prophet 
Daniel”’ is not necessarily regarded as meaning anything more 
than that it stands in the prophetical Book of Daniel, just as 
our citation of a gospel item as given by Matthew does not 
necessarily imply any intent to make special note of the writer, 
but only a purpose to distinguish a particular book from others 
of its class. No doubt the supposition that the impress of a 
later hand appears upon the Book of Daniel involves a certain 
forfeiture. It leaves us with a less distinct assurance that the 
narrative contains no traditionary variations from the historical 
facts. On the other hand, it must be conceded that it facili- 
tates the explanation of the dramatic hue cast over the various 
historical scenes which are depicted. Contemporary history 
is not so naturally painted in this style as is that which is some- 
what remote. 

It is not necessary for dogmatic purposes to decide any one 
of these questions of authorship. The fact that the Bible is 
not so definitely committed to one theory or another that its 
authority is put in hazard by a special turn of criticism is the 
truth that is to be specially emphasized. As a matter of 
simple opinion, however, we venture to say that the indus- 
trious effort which has been made to conserve the traditional 
theories cannot be regarded as highly successful. A plausible 
or semi-plausible answer is indeed made to many of the 
objections. But the grounds for doubt are not thereby dissi- 
pated. The piecemeal defense does not fully offset the force 
of concurring lines of opposing evidence. In the light of 
facts which have been brought into view, scholarly judgment 
will continue to find serious obstacles to accepting the Mosaic 
authorship of the entire Pentateuch, the unity of the Book of 
Isaiah, and the preparation of the Book of Daniel in its present 
form so far back as the time of the Babylonish captivity. 


REVELATION. 133 


Even were one to hold the traditional views on these topics, it 
would be the reverse of discretion to build upon them as neces- 
sary foundations in the edifice of Christian faith. 


As regards the New Testament books, the most important 
problem of authorship relates to the fourth Gospel. This 
Gospel is not, in strictness, anonymous. Neither can it be 
allowed that the author impersonates the Apostle John by an 
admissible literary device. Impersonation of a distinguished 
character was, indeed, no unheard of expedient among ancient 
writers. We have an example in the Book of Ecclesiastes, 
where the writer speaks in the name of Solomon. This does 
not imply, necessarily, any intention to deceive. It was a 
rhetorical device which, very likely, the reader was expected 
to see through, employed to enliven or to dignify the dis- 
course. In the fourth Gospel we have something quite other 
than this literary contrivance. The author has employed lan 
guage which has the force of an explicit testimony that he was 
one of the original disciples, and has given tokens which it is 
difficult to believe were not meant to identify that disciple 
with John. If he was not John, we are confronted by the 
perplexing conclusion that the author of this deeply spiritual 
narrative of our Lord’s ministry was guilty of intentional de- 
ception. Once assured of the thorough honesty of the writer, 
we could count it a matter of minor consequence whether an 
original disciple, or one who had enjoyed special intimacy with 
an original disciple, was that writer. But an indication of a 
breach of honesty on his part would leave us destitute of 


1 John i. 14, xix. 35, xxi. 20-24. The words of 1 John i. 1-4 come also into 
evidence, since it is the common verdict that the Gospel and the Epistle were from 
the same writer. The introductory words of the latter amount to a very explicit 
testimony that the writer was an eye-witness of Christ’s ministry. If xxi. 24 
be regarded as appended by another than the author of the Gospel, then in- 
deed no formal claim of that author to identity with John or with one of the 
twelve appears; but his claim to have been an eye-witness remains, and criti- 
cism has very little motive to set aside John, in favor of any other eye-witness. 

10 


134 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


adequate guarantees for any points of history not supported 
by other evidence than his word. But happily it remains to 
be proved that we are under obligation to despoil ourselves of 
any treasure which the fourth Gospel contains by denying to 
it the character of a sincere narrative. 

The external evidence for the Johannine authorship of this 
Gospel is by no means of inferior grade. Irenzeus, according 
to his own conviction, was at only one remove from the apostle, 
having been in communication with Polycarp, who was a dis- 
ciple of John! He testifies explicitly that John published his 
Gospel while resident at Ephesus.2,_ The whole body of Chris- 
tians, from the days of Irenzeus, with insignificant exceptions 
in the ranks of heretics, shared his conviction. Tatian, the 
disciple of Justin Martyr, used the fourth Gospel along with 
the others, in composing his Diatessaron or gospel harmony. 
There are clear indications in the writings of Justin Martyr 
that he was conversant with this Gospel. The effect of its 
perusal appears not only in the general cast of his Logos 
teaching, but also on various specific points.? In the writings 
of the Apostolic Fathers a strain of fourth-Gospel phrase- 
ology can be detected. This may be noticed in Polycarp, 
Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, as also in the Teaching of the 
Twelve Apostles. Indeed, the probable traces of the Gospel 
reach back to the earliest writings that were subsequent to 
the supposed time of its composition by John, namely, the 
last decade of the first century. To bring its existence close 
up to this point is obviously to strengthen, if not to prove, the 
supposition that it came from the hand of the apostle. The 
external evidence is, in truth, as continuous as could reason- 
ably be expected. Its force may not be demonstrative, but it 
supplies no inferior ground for a historical judgment. 


1 Cont. Haer. III. 3. 4; Euseb., Hist. Eccl. V. 20. 

2 Cont. Haer. III. 1. 

8 See Purves, The Testimony of Justin Martyr to Early Christianity, Lecture V. 
4 Weiss, Einleitung, § 5. 


REVELATION. 135 


A due rating of the internal evidence for the Johannine 
authorship of the fourth Gospel needs to be preceded by an 
explanation of the manifest contrast between it and the Synop- 
tical Gospels. Until this contrast is accounted for, it remains 
a historical enigma that may easily excite scepticism as to the 
rise of the peculiar version of Christ’s life within the circle of 
the primitive disciples. Is the required explanation at hand ? 
It is believed that this question can be answered in the affirma- 
tive. In the first place, the contrast is measurably explained 
by the supplementary position which is held by the fourth 
Gospel. It may be incorrect to assume that it was a leading 
motive with John to fill out the narrative in those respects in 
which it was left incomplete by the other evangelists. The 
leading motive was rather an affectionate zeal for the person 
of Christ, and the desire to present a worthy view of His glory 
as the Son of God made truly incarnate. Still knowledge of 
the course and compass of the earlier narratives was naturally 
influential. It wrought, we may believe, as a secondary motive, 
and so directed the choice of subject-matter as to make the 
fourth Gospel, in fact, very largely supplementary to the others, 
or distinguished by the introduction of new scenes and dis- 
courses. Again, the contrast between this Gospel and the 
first three may be explained to some extent by the near relation 
of John to the Master. He belonged to the inner group of 
the apostles, and was the only one of that group who can be 
supposed to have furnished at first hand an extended account 
of Christ’s ministry. It is indeed presumed that Peter stood 
in close relation to the second Gospel, but there is no pledge 
that it has the precise color which it would bear had it come 
directly from his thought and recollection. A third and more 
important element in the explanation is the personality of 
John. From what we know of Paul it is difficult to imagine 
that, if he had been in condition to write a life of Christ, and 
had undertaken the task, he would have executed it in the 
style of the Synoptists. The force of his personality would 


136 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


almost of necessity have projected into it a distinct Pauline 
tinge. Now the character of John may be supposed to have been 
similarly a potent factor in his writing. He is described as 
having been in his early manhood of the Boanerges type.! 
This gives us a hint that he was an intense personality. This 
intensity, softened but not cancelled by advancing years, and 
blending with somewhat of a bent to mysticism, would very 
naturally emerge into such distinct literary expression as 
appears in the fourth Gospel. This is the more credible be- 
cause of the distance at which the evangelist stood from the 
events which he recorded. _ In proportion as the edge of verbal 
recollection had been dulled by the lapse of half a century or 
more, the Johannine personality would be the more free to 
effect the use of Johannine phraseology in reproducing the 
substance of Christ’s discourses. Lastly, the environment of 
John in his closing years helps to explain some of the special 
characteristics of the fourth Gospel. According to an early 
and credible tradition, he dwelt at Ephesus, an important in- 
tellectual centre in that age. A weighty responsibility rested 
upon him for the administration and guidance of the Church. 
New forces began to work within the horizon of Christianity. 
Tendencies to adventurous speculation that threatened the 
integrity of gospel truth were manifest. The times called 
for an authoritative exposition of the person and teaching of 
Christ. What wonder that John, writing under these con- 
ditions, should blend a larger element of interpretation with 
the record of gospel facts than appears in the accounts of the 
Synoptists. 

The peculiarity of the fourth Gospel being thus explained, 
full credit may be given to the internal evidences of its apos- 
tolic, or, what is the same thing in this relation, its Johannine 
authorship. In the first place it is worthy, in its high spiritual 
level, of the creative apostolic era, and stands in broad con- 


rrr nn tn 


1 Mark iii. 17. 


REVELATION. 137 


trast: with the post-apostolic literature. Then it exhibits an 
exact acquaintance with Jewish rites and institutions, a precise 
knowledge of the topography of Palestine, a familiarity with 
many subordinate circumstances of gospel events, a confidence 
in reporting items of time and place, such as can be accounted 
for only in a resident of Palestine and a companion of Christ's 
ministry. None but an eye-witness of the things recounted 
could be expected to combine such unhesitating confidence, 
such mastery of details, and such accuracy on the points of 
fact which can be put to the test. Critics of different schools 
have been ready to claim that on various passages of Christ’s life 
the fourth Gospel acts as a clarifying agent. It is judged, 
for example, to be in the right in its assignment of an early 
Judaan ministry to Christ and its assumption that the last 
supper anticipated the passover feast. ! 

Among the writings attributed to Paul, the Pastoral Epistles, 
especially First Timothy, have been most frequently chal- 
lenged. Objection has also been made to the Pauline authorship 
of Colossians and Ephesians. Originally the Tiibingen School, 
under the leadership of Baur, granted to Paul only Romans, 
Galatians, and the two Epistles to the Corinthians. But it 
has been found too much of a task to sustain this ultra position. 
The evident tendency in the modern critical school is to con- 
cede to Paul the Thessalonian Epistles, Philippians, and Phile- 
mon. It also renders a large measure of assent to the Pauline 
authorship of Colossians, and is less confident than formerly 
in taking exception to Ephesians. We conclude, then, that it 
involves no rashness to cite as apostolic writings ten of the 
epistles bearing the name of Paul. As regards the three 
Pastoral Epistles, it has to be granted that the amount of ex- 
ception taken to their Pauline authorship abridges somewhat 
the practical force of an appeal to them. On the other 
hand, it is to be noticed that very eminent representatives of 


1So Weiss, Wendt, Wetzel, Sanday, Rhees, and others. 


138 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


New Testament criticism suppose an original Pauline base in 
these epistles, and affirm that their dogmatic background 
is unmistakably Pauline, only with some softening down in the 
direction of the early Catholic theology! If we add to this 
the fact that reputable scholars are still of opinion that the judg- 
ment of the Church in assigning the Pastoral Epistles to Paul 
may be defended, it cannot seem to involve an arbitrary use 
of data to include these epistles in a general way among the 
sources of Pauline dogmatics. At the same time, it is a matter 
of prudence not to build very much on the apostolic authority 
of items in them which are not given, in substance, in the 
other epistles bearing the name of Paul. 


XII. — INSPIRATION. 


An interior divine agency auxiliary to the grasp and ex- 
pression of truth, and therefore serving as a factor in the proc- 
ess of revelation, is what is meant by inspiration. Logically 
its consideration is subordinate to that of revelation. When 
we have been certified by an examination of the contents of 
the Bible and by the exhibition of its power over intellect, con- 
science, and affection, that it contains a revelation from God, 
and have used the general character of this revelation as a stand- 
ard for judging the claims of those books which are most ex- 
posed to question, we are ready to welcome such an explanation 
of the exceptional dignity and worth of the Scriptures as is af- 
forded by the ideaof inspiration. It is the established fact of a 
revelation—that is, the fact of aworthy and credible manifesta- 
tion of divine character, agency, and purpose — which invites 
to the supposition of inspiration, rather than the assumption 
of inspiration which certifies of the fact of revelation. 


1See Adolf Harnack, Die Chronologie der Altchristlichen Litteratur; H. J. 
Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der Neutestamentlichen Theologie. 


REVELATION. 139 


This order of themes brings us naturally to the fit position 
for receiving the testimony of the Bible itself on the subject 
of inspiration. When the Bible has been approved by its 
contents and spiritual efficiency as containing a veritable reve- 
lation from God, its witness to the inspiration of its authors 
becomes at once a credible witness, at least as respects any 
book which appears to belong to the organism of revelation. 

Biblical testimony to inspiration may be regarded as given 
in four different lines: (1) in the way in which the Old Testa- 
ment is quoted or referred to in the New ;! (2) in the promises 
of special divine assistance, for the discharge of their office, 
which Christ made to the apostles ;* (3) in accounts of the 
fulfillment of these promises ;* (4) in the claims of the apostles 
themselves.* 

In estimating the force of this aggregate of testimonies, it 
is proper to take some account of the peculiarities of biblical 
phraseology. Anyone who is moderately acquainted with the 
Old Testament cannot have failed to notice that Hebrew piety 
was swift to refer all extraordinary gifts that subserved a good 
end, all talents and powers rising noticeably above the common 
level, to a divine source. In its view these things betokened 
the operation of the Spirit of God. Now this order of thought 
and expression naturally passed over in some measure to the 
New Testament writers since, through their training, they 
shared in the characteristic Hebrew consciousness. Their 
language, where the divine working is concerned, is often to be 
construed as the language of vivid, earnest, enthusiastic piety, 
rather than that of precise logical discourse. But, even when 
taken with this allowance, it leaves no doubt about the intent 

1 Matt. xxii. 29; Luke xvi. 17, 29-31, xxii. 37, xxiv. 27,44; John x. 35; Acts iv. 
25; 1 Cor. iv. 6; 2 Tim. iil. 15-17. 

2 Matt. x. 19, 20; Mark xiii. 11; Luke xii. 11, 12, xxi. 14, 15, xxiv. 49: John 
vii. 39, xiv. 16-18, 26, xv. 26, 27, xvi. 12-15, Acts i. 5, 8. 

8 Acts ii. 4, iv. 31, xiii. 2-4, xv. 28, xvi, 6, 7. 


4 Acts xv, 28; Rom. xv. 18, 19; 1 Cor. ii. 16, vii. 40, xiv. 37; 2 Cor. xiii. 3; 
Gal. i. 12; Eph. iii. 3; 1 Thess. ii. 13, iv. 15; 1 Pet. i. 12; 2 Pet. iii. 16, 


140 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


of the Bible to recognize a veritable inspiration of those who 
served as the chief media for inculcating and transmitting 
the truths of revelation. In other words, biblical testimony, 
either directly or by the most obvious implications, clearly ac- 
centuates the fact of biblical inspiration, the fact that the Holy 
Spirit wrought in prophets and apostles in accordance with 
the demands of their vocation. The qualifying considerations 
which are due to the peculiarities of the religious dialect of 
the Bible do not so much compromise its testimony to the fact 
of inspiration as leave room for inquiry respecting the mode 
and measure. No precise determination of these points can be 
elicited from the biblical references to the subject. These 
may afford suggestions, but they do not provide complete 
data for a theory. To secure a well-grounded theory. of in- 
spiration we must pass beyond the biblical references, whether 
formal or implicit, and consider what is demanded by rational 
considerations in union with the aggregate of biblical facts. 
Such a rational datum as the necessary activity of the mind 
in the appropriation of truth implies that inspiration does not 
suppress the use of the natural faculties in its subject, but 
rather carries them up to a higher stage of activity. To 
assume the passivity of the subject is to assume an artificial 
relation between him and his message ; his function becomes 
that of a machine, and his message, when once given, would be 
as foreign to his own mind as to that of any other person. A 
Paul, for example, after writing an epistle, would need in the 
first place to be convinced that he had written it, and then 
would need to study it to become aware of its contents, and, 
unless its meaning could be readily apprehended by the natural 
faculties, he would need to be inspired anew to grasp its real 
import. This new inspiration, however, could not put him 
into conscious possession of that import if it did not leave 
him the constitutional activity of his faculties, such activity 
being an indispensable condition of all positive appropriation 
of truth. There is no way, accordingly, to an extraordinary 


REVELATION. 141 


grasp of truth through inspiration, except as inspiration ener- 
gizes rather than suppresses its subject. That is, inspiration 
must be dynamical rather than mechanical. Its office is to 
quicken intellect and emotion, and thus to prepare a subjec- 
tive ground properly correspondent to the objective elements 
which enter into the process of revelation. 

A glance at the Bible tends to confirm what the reason of 
the case thus dictates. In Old Testament prophesying, it is 
true, an afflatus had place, by which proper self-consciousness 
was overborne, and an experience of ecstacy or trance induced. 
But this was characteristic of a subordinate stage of prophesy- 
ing. The great prophets of the Old Testament, who were the 
principal organs of revelation, seem to have had little share in 
this order of experience. As for the New Testament, while 
it makes reference to visions and ecstacies, it gives no hint, at 
least apart from the Apocalypse,! that its writers did not come 
to their subject-matter in the open day of proper self-con- 
sciousness, and in the active exercise of their faculties. More- 
over, there is no natural explanation of the facts of biblical 
style, except on the supposition that the personalities of the 
sacred writers were present and active in their writing. Why 
should there be as many styles as writers, and these styles 
reflections of the personal characteristics and circumstances 
of the writers respectively, if they were mere passive instru- 
ments ? The explanation that the Holy Spirit was pleased to 
use the style of the various persons employed as His penmen 
is much too forced to stand the test of reflection and criticism. 
It pushes accommodation to the point of absurdity, as making 
all the rhetorical imperfections, as well as the excellences of 
the scriptural writers, the product of the positive choice and 
agency of the Holy Spirit. 


1 The excepting of the Apocalypse, it is hardly necessary to state, isnot meant 
to imply that it bears no tokens of conscious industrious elaboration. The refer- 
ence here is directed simply to the fact that the writer presents his subject-matter 
in the form of a series of visions, 


142 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


In the early part of the chapter it was noticed that the 
intellectual and moral limitations of men unfit them to be in- 
dividually recipients and expounders of the whole circle of 
divine truth, and that, consequently, there was a necessity for 
educative expedients and for the use, in long succession, of 
different agents of revelation. In the present connection, the 
question naturally arises whether these limitations, besides 
circumscribing the subject-matter of individual writers, did 
not also, in some instances, induce errors either as to feeling 
or fact. It is quite conceivable that there might be such 
errors or inaccuracies, and still the authority of the Bible 
stand secure, because the general harmony of its contents, 
and the manner in which one writer supplements another, 
leave the reader, in the end, with a complete and self-con- 
sistent organism of religious truth. Now, on the theory which 
has just been advocated, namely, that inspiration is not to be 
regarded as suppressing the personality of the sacred writer, it 
would have to be accounted a great marvel if the Bible should 
appear to be characterized by complete inerrancy. How su- 
premely difficult, for example, in a free, limited and imperfect 
man, to unite intensity of feeling with perfect judicial balance ! 
What less would it have been than a continuous miracle, if the 
patriotic intensity of Israel, which was shared by the Old 
Testament writers, had never broken over the just bounds in 
reprobation of her opponents and spoilers? The palpable 
fact is, that it did break over the just bounds. There are 
sentences in the Psalms which are manifestly the expression 
of hot human passion. To attribute to divine inspiration such 
words as are contained in Psalms lviil. 10, cix. 10-12, and 
CXXXvil. 9, is to dishonor both God and the Bible for the sake 
of affirming the perfect agency of the Psalm-writers. In the 
light of the ultimate teaching of the Bible itself, they must be 
described as errors of feeling springing from human imper- 
fection, And it is equally clear, from a comparison of one 
part of Scripture with another, that it contains some errors of 


REVELATION. 143 


fact. Let the explanation be what it may, whether some re- 
sistance within the will of the writers to guidance, or an 
absence of complete guidance in comparatively unimportant 
matters, the errors are undeniable. Deuteronomy does not 
always agree with the preceding books of the Pentateuch.! 
The Books of Chronicles disagree in a number of subordinate 
items with those of Samuel and Kings,? not to mention how 
widely the idea which the Chronicler gives of the career of 
Solomon as a whole differs from that which is supplied by the 
earlier historian. Again, the account of an event in the his- 
torical books does not invariably accord fully with the refer- 
ence to the same in the prophetical writings proper. For 
instance, the author of 2 Kings represents Jehu as being 
commended of the Lord for the unsparing vengeance which 
he took upon the house of Ahab,? whereas Hosea speaks of 
Jehu’s bloody deed as something to be avenged upon his own 
house. Old Testament data indicate, furthermore, an occa- 
sional inaccuracy in the New Testament report of historical 
facts. Thus the genealogy, recorded in the first chapter of 
Matthew, is said to contain fourteen links for each of three 
intervals between Abraham and Jesus; but it is not possible, 
on the ground of Old Testament history, to assign just this 
number of names to every one of the intervals.° In the ac- 
count of some of the gospel scenes, also, the report of one 
evangelist diverges from that of another. In short, the evi- 


1 Compare Deut. x. 1-5 with Ex. xxv. 10-21, xxxvii. I-9. 

2 Compare 2 Sam. xxiv. 9 with 1 Chron. xxi. v; 2 Sam. xxiv. 24 with 1 Chron. 
xxi. 25; I Kings v. 16 with 2 Chron. ii. 2; 1 Kings xv. 32 with 2 Chron. xiv. 1; 
1 Kings xv. 14 with 2 Chron. xiv. 3; 1 Kings vii. 1§ with 2 Chron. iii. 15. More 
significant than most of the above is the discrepancy between 2 Sam. xxiv. 1 and 
1 Chron, xxi. 1. 

8 2 Kings x. * Hosea i. 4. 

5 Compare, furthermore, Gen. xlvi. 26, 27 with Acts vii. 14; Numb. xxv. 9, 
with 1 Cor. x. 8; 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, with Matt. xxiii. 35. 

8 Compare, for example, Matt. xx. 30-34 with Mark x. 46-52; Matt. xxviii. 
1~6 with Mark xvi. 1-6, and Luke xxiv. 1-10; also, Matt. xxvii. 5-8 with Acts i. 
18, 19. 


144 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


dence decisively establishes the conclusion that inspiration did 
not so far cancel or control human agency as to secure com- 
plete inerrancy. It may, indeed, be suggested that all dis- 
crepancies can be accounted for as the mistakes of copyists. 
This solution may apply to individual instances, but in many 
cases it is entirely inadmissible ; and in general it has too 
much the appearance of an arbitrary makeshift to be enter- 
tained by any except those who think it necessary to maintain, 
at all hazards, a preconceived theory of biblical perfection. 
Such should be reminded that there may be an unseemly pet- 
tiness in defending the Bible, as well as in searching for flaws 
in its contents. 

The substantial truth of the biblical history is all that is 
needed to support the edifice of revelation, and substantial 
truth is not denied by occasional errors in subordinate details. 
In general, Bible history bears very well such tests as are avail- 
able. While antiquarian research cannot be said to elicit a 
favorable verdict in all instances, it does confirm the historical 
groundwork of the Bible to a gratifying extent. For its 
earliest narratives the tests are of course very scanty. Proper 
historic proof is here out of the question. Some have indeed 
thought that the ethnic traditions about the beginnings of 
human history tend by their resembling features to confirm the 
opening chapters of Genesis. But this order of considerations 
affords only a moderate ground of confidence. These traditions 
may have been largely the product of legendary construction 
in the oldest nations, and been passed on by them to other 
peoples. The purer and nobler cast of the biblical stories does 
not by itself prove them the originals. This superiority would 
be accounted for were it supposed that the common traditions 
were taken up and interpreted by an Israelitish prophet, and 
purged of all that was out of harmony with the religious point 
of view to which he had been educated. His training within 
the Hebrew theocracy would guarantee that the ground ideas 
put into his narratives should agree with the outcome to which 


REVELATION. 145 


the process of revelation had arrived in his time; but that it 
would exclude all legendary materials is a conclusion which it is 
not easy to establish. So the field of begimnings lies, for the 
most part, beyond the application of historic tests, aside from 
the record which has been engraven upon the face of nature. 
But for the Christian dogmatist this is of small consequence. 
What he needs for his use is the underlying ideas of the first 
chapters of Genesis — the imprint of such conceptions as the 
absolute supremacy of God, the goodness of the creation, 
the high destination of man, the sanctity of marriage, the in- 
troduction of moral evil through an abuse of freedom, and the 
tendency of apostasy to pass on from bad to worse unless met 
by powerful remedial agencies. With these truths under his 
hand, he can afford to waive the question whether the inspira- 
tion of the historian was such as to enable him to reproduce 
from a far distant past the literal truth of the first passages in 
the history of the earth and of man. The New Testament, it 
may be observed, makes but scanty reference to the details 
of the narratives preceding the call of Abraham. 

A popular, technical faith is no doubt likely to be shocked 
by this admission of the fact of errors. But it is only neces- 
sary to recapitulate what has already been said to indicate that 
the fact need not be a stumbling-block to intelligent faith. 
Three considerations in particular are to be kept in mind: 
(1) The great things of the Bible are so very great, and so 
harmoniously related to each other, that whoever sees them 
in true perspective must feel that they can never be obscured 
by this or that error in a subordinate range. (2) So far as 
the errors have any moral or religious bearing, the progress 
of revelation has provided an adequate corrective. The stan- 
dard, as ultimately presented in the spirit and teaching of 
Christ, and in the apostolic reflection of the same, is a stan- 
dard which rises high before the loftiest thought and striving 
of men and is in no danger of being transcended or superseded. 
(3) So far as the errors have no real bearing on morals or 


146 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


religion, they are to be regarded as too loosely connected with 
the essential edifice of biblical truth to interfere at all seriously 
with its claims. They take rank among things incidental to 
the process of erecting the edifice. As belonging to the scaf- 
folding they cannot deny the perfection of the edifice, the 
erection of which was the proper task of revelation. 

Possibly one may be disposed to ask still, How shall the 
reader of a book not guaranteed to be perfectly inerrant dis- 
tinguish between truth and error? The answer is quite obvi- 
ous, so far as concerns a general principle of procedure. No 
intelligent or morally earnest person accepts the Bible as a 
whole by a mere caprice or arbitrary act of will. He accepts 
it because he finds that it possesses characteristics which make 
it credible that it contains a divine revelation. Now, the 
characteristics which approve the Bible as a whole manifestly 
are fitted to serve as a standard, generally speaking, for judg- 
ing a specific portion. If such portion in tone and content is 
seen to be contradictory to these characteristics, it is made 
questionable whether it has any better source than human 
fallibility. Mere position in a complex body of writings can- 
not require the truth-seeker to close his eyes to the actual 
character of an individual sentiment. Any sentiment which, 
if found in a compendium of ethnic scriptures, would elicit a 
disparaging estimate from a mind enlightened by the completed 
biblical revelation, cannot consistently be ranked as truth 
simply on the ground of its being in the commonly recognized 
biblical canon. ‘To assume the opposite would involve the 
grotesque conclusion that we need each to keep on hand two 
minds, one for judging sentiments recorded in the Bible, and 
another for judging the same sentiments when found elsewhere. 

The above are the main considerations to be noted, namely, 
that inspiration was dynamical rather than mechanical, and 
that, so far as it was a factor in the process of revelation, it 
wrought to secure infallibility, not so much in subordinate par- 
ticulars or matters external to the central purpose of the Bible, 


REVELATION. 147 


as in the trend and outcome of its teaching. A few points of 
lesser significance may receive a passing glance, such as the 
question of degrees of inspiration, the relation of inspiration 
to language, its connection with the act of writing, and its 
kinship with the operation of the Holy Spirit in His general 
office of enlightenment. | 

That there were different degrees of inspiration follows 
from the consideration that the personality of the writer was 
a real coefficient in the matter of biblical production. The 
Jarger and loftier the personality of the writer and the better 
his antecedent training, the less, naturally, were the barricrs 
which he interposed to divine illumination, and the greater his 
competency to receive and to impart the pure truth of God. 
The diversity of tasks assigned to the different writers also 
suggests different degrees of inspiration. To record plain 
matters of fact evidently did not demand such a measure of 
illumination as the responsible office of expounding the great 
truths of God’s nature and redemptive purpose. 

While the theory of verbal inspiration, current in the seven- 
teenth century and still defended by an occasional advocate, 
must be rejected as involving an untenable mechanical concep- 
tion, and as contradicted by undeniable characteristics of the 
Scriptures, it may still be granted that inspiration affected the 
language of the sacred writers. Whatever influences feeling 
and thought naturally also, by reason of intrinsic connection, 
influences language. But to influence is not necessarily to 
determine outright. The personality of the writer also influ- 
enced his language in every instance. Only a partial deter- 
mination of the verbal outcome can therefore be imputed to 
inspiration. In any given instance the degree of that deter- 
mination must be regarded as entirely problematical. 

There is no warrant for connecting inspiration exclusively 
with the act of writing. The New Testament gives no hint 
that the apostles were to be more amply guided in writing 
than in speaking. The office of inspiration was to effect 


148 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


receptivity for the truth, or to enliven perception of the truth. 
Supposing the truth to be already within the mental grasp of 
the sacred writer before he set himself to the task of tran- 
scription, there would be no further requirement for inspira- 
tion except to sustain that holy feeling and spiritual alertness 
which are always needed for the right discharge of an impor- 
tant duty, and which would be especially appropriate in the 
production of a writing destined to fulfill a great providential 
office. 

A certain kinship may be supposed between the inspiration 
of the sacred writers and the enlightening operation of the 
Holy Spirit in believers generally. Decisive proof in the 
matter is doubtless beyond our reach, but it is not overbold to 
assume the probability that the difference in the two cases is 
rather as to scope than as to mode. In the believer as a 
subject of divine grace an order of convictions respecting 
his personal standing is wrought by the Holy Spirit. In the 
sacred writer an order of convictions is wrought respecting 
the divine kingdom, or some phase of that kingdom. It is 
the same Spirit that operates in both cases and the same kind 
of subject that is operated upon. It is difficult therefore to 
imagine any good reason for denying that the mode of opera- 
tion in one instance is akin to that in the other. 

No distinct name has been given to the theory which has 
been advocated. And in fact it is best described by a sum- 
mary of the conceptions which it includes. No one of the 
current names is strictly applicable. The term “plenary in- 
spiration”’ is too indefinite for any intelligible use. ‘* Verbal 
inspiration,’ taken in its ordinary sense, is a name for a palpa- 
ble exaggeration. The so-called “intuitional theory” sins by 
defect. In so far as it emphasizes the personality of the 
sacred writer, it has indeed a close affinity with the view advo- 
cated above. But the intuitional theory disparages the notion 
of the direct operation of the Holy Spirit, and implies that the 
educated faculties of the scriptural writers, by their own virtue, 


REVELATION. 149 


grasped all the truth which they conveyed. We find no ade- 
quate ground for the assumption, and therefore cannot classify 
our view of inspiration as the intuitional theory. The follow- 
ing statement expresses the substance of our conception : — 
The true theory of inspiration includes the main thought of the 
intuitional theory, and adds a good margin for the direct agency 
of the Holy Spirit, that agency being conceived as operating 
dynamically rather than mechanically, and as being akin in its 
mode to that which has place in various acts of spiritual en- 
lightenment in the subjects, generally, of the gracious visita- 
tion of the Spirit. 


XIII.— QUESTION OF THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE BIBLICAL 
REVELATION, OR OF THE POSSIBILITY OF AUTHORITA- 
TIVE SUPPLEMENTS. 


Before leaving the subject of the chapter, a few words will 
be appropriate on the question whether revelation needs, or 
admits of, any authoritative supplements. The response to 
this question naturally directs attention to reason, to Christian 
consciousness, and to ecclesiastical authority. 

The extent to which reason may be made a criterion of an 
alleged revelation has already been considered.1 The question 
of its competency to supplement the revelation in the Bible 
might be entertained in this connection. This question, how- 
ever, blends very largely with that of the relation of Chris- 
tian consciousness to the biblical revelation. For, what is 
“Christian consciousness’ but a name for the cardinal judg- 
ments and feelings of Christians, their religious modes both 
in the line of thought and emotion? It may be defined in 
brief as the educated reason and feeling of Christian believers. 
Accordingly, in pronouncing on the competency of Christian 


1 Chapter I, Section IX, 
If 


150 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


consciousness to supplement the Bible we are, at the same 
time, pronouncing on the competency of reason in that par- 
ticular; at least on the competency of reason in Christian 
minds; and to one who accepts the Bible as containing a divine 
revelation, unchristian or anti-christian reason cannot appear 
more trustworthy than Christian, or entitled to larger pre- 
rogative. 

From the premises of Christian faith, acknowledging as it 
does the authority of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and con- 
fessing the fulfillment of His promise to the apostles that they 
should be divinely guided in-representing His person and truth, 
it follows that a substantial finality pertains to the New Testa- 
ment body of teaching. Now this body of teaching is so well 
rounded, so ample in content, that it is most reasonably re- 
garded as containing in principle all important truth respecting 
the relation of men to God or to their fellow-men. Improve- 
ment must therefore relate to deductions rather than to any 
foundation teachings. It is possible that successive genera- 
tions should advance to a better understanding of this or that 
truth, to a clearer perception of the proper application of this 
or that doctrine, to a holding of different phases of teaching in 
a truer proportion, to more normal ways of feeling on this or 
that point. And herein is defined the vocation of the Chris- 
tian consciousness. In its proper unfoldment it does not so 
much reach beyond the deposit of truth in revelation, as im- 
prove upon the prior understanding of some portion of that 
truth and upon the habitual feeling connected therewith. 

That the Christian consciousness must unfold normally is of 
course no self-evident truth. There may be lapses and retro- 
cessions, perversions of thought and feeling as well as improve- 
ments. Christian consciousness will be no better than the 
proportion of sound mental engagement, of sincere love of 
the truth, of consecrated purpose, of pure affection, and of 
living experience of divine grace, which is characteristic of the 
Christian community. Still, on any but a pessimistic view of 


REVELATION. 151 


human nature, it is legitimate to expect that in the long run 
genuine advances will be made. One and another unmistak- 
able gain has already been achieved. There is no probability, 
for example, that the Christian world will ever again think and 
feel on the subject of human slavery as vast communities of 
Christians have thought and felt in the past. No more is it 
probable that Christians will again feel respecting future punish- 
ment by literal fire as whole generations have felt upon this 
subject. Advance may be slow and interrupted, but the idea 
of an advancing Christian consciousness is plainly not a pure 
fiction. 

If Christian consciousness has no clear prerogative to add 
to the foundation teaching of the New Testament, still less 
can such a prerogative be conceded to church authority. To 
impose as matter of belief what is not demanded by the edu- 
cated reason and feeling of the Christian community is a 
species of tyranny and usurpation. Legitimate church au- 
thority must follow in the wake of Christian consciousness, 
and require at least no more than it dictates. Doubtless it 
is theoretically conceivable that the good reason and feeling 
of the Christian community should be more than matched by 
a divine charism in certain standing officials. But who are 
these officials, and what credentials are they able to show for 
their supernatural gift and consequent authority? As will be 
shown in another connection, the actual claimants of such 
authority are overwhelmingly convicted of unfounded pre- 
tenses by the data of Christian history. There is no warrant, 
therefore, for supposing that church authority has any func- 
tion in the enforcement of Christian truth outside of or 
beyond the demands of the educated reason and feeling of 
the Christian community at large. 

It will perhaps be suggested that tradition should have been 
mentioned, if not in place of church authority, at least in 
association therewith. But tradition is little else than a name 
for an imaginary entity. At any rate, if tradition be taken in 


152 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


the sense of the standard Roman Catholic definition, namely, 
as the portion of revelation transmitted orally by the apostles, 
credible proof is wanting that any such thing is extant. The 
earliest of the fathers, instead of possessing more of the 
apostolic teaching than is contained in the New Testament, 
apparently were in possession of less than might easily be 
derived from that source. Not one of them has made the 
least authentic addition to the recorded facts of Christ’s life. 
A man in such direct succession as Irenzus could add only 
evident misconceptions to the matter of the evangelical narra- 
tives! Taken in a body, the early fathers show, either by 
their contradictions or by their silence, that they had no cer- 
tified teaching of the apostles, outside the canon, that was of 
any consequence. It is true that after the beginning of the 
third century an occasional reference may be found to a secret 
tradition. But the reference, while indicating that motives 
to use reserve in teachings placed under the inspection of the 
uninitiated had begun to work effectively at that time in some 
portions of the church, affords no voucher as to the handing 
down of any unrecorded item of genuine apostolic teaching. 
The so-called Disciplina Arcana, which was distinctly recog- 
nized by the Church in the fourth century, evidently had not 
become any part of her policy at the middle of the second 
century, since Justin Martyr, in a writing addressed to the 
emperor, senate, and Roman people generally, felt perfectly 
free to describe that to which this “discipline’’ more especially 
applied, namely the rites of baptism and the eucharist. It is 
to be noticed also that the Dzsciplina Arcana, like the code 
which governed the contemporary pagan “mysteries,” obli- 
gated to silence about the Christian ordinances only in respect 
to their ritual transactions. The dogmatic significance of 
both baptism and the eucharist was matter of open discus- 
sion. If the baptismal creed was included among items not 





1 Cont. Haer. ii. 22. 


REVELATION. 153 


to be voiced in public, it was in its character as an item of 
ritual and not on account of its dogmatic contents.! Even 
the admission that some dogmatic content came under the 
prescription of the Disciplina Arcana would not contribute 
any element of worth to traditionary authority. Such ques- 
tions as the following would need to be asked: What was 
that content? How long did it run underground? When 
was the bond of secrecy cancelled so as to allow it to emerge 
and to pass into written records? What guarantee is there 
either that it came from the original spring of apostolic teach- 
ing, or that in its underground travel it was not so mixed 
with foreign ingredients as to become greatly corrupted ? 
Manifestly it is so completely impossible to identify it with 
any apostolic datum, that, supposing it ever to have been a 
real thing, it can have no significance now. We are not 
permitted, therefore, to suppose any trustworthy current of 
teachings in the early centuries which did not come to expres- 
sion in the writings of the fathers. Their silence and their 
divergences alike testify that nothing of importance was trans- 
mitted from the apostles which did not obtain a record in the 
New Testament writings. It is possible indeed that some 
points of administration or ritual may have been derived 
through the channel of oral teaching. But no authority can 
be claimed on this score even for such matters, since the 
evidence that they really had any warrant in the word of the 
apostles lies in the mist. Where nearly everything was mani- 
festly in process of growth, no adequate means for ascertaining 
unrecorded originals are afforded. 

In a truthful nomenclature the extra-biblical authority of 
the Roman Catholic Church must not be styled tradition, but 
ecclesiastical authority. What determines doctrinal issues in 
that Church is not any distinct proof of a pertinent content 
in the oral teaching of the apostles, but custom, more or less 


1Compare Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfluss auf das 
Christenthum, Gottingen, 1894. 


154 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


old, and of greater or less extent, adopted and made binding 
by official fiat. As long ago as the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century, the keen-minded Bellarmin seems to have 
suspected that this, very largely, was the actual method of de- 
termining dogmas in his Church, and so he set about adjusting 
the conception of authoritative tradition to this method. He 
recognized, indeed, the propriety of historical investigation ; 
but, at the same time, he opened a wide door of escape from 
the labor and inconvenience of this means of testing dogmas. 
He says: “ When the universal church [that is, the Roman 
Catholic Church as a whole} embraces anything as a dogma of 
the faith, which is not found in the divine Word, it is neces- 
sary to say that it is derived from apostolic tradition. The 
reason of this is the following: Inasmuch as the universal 
Church cannot err, since it is the pillar and foundation of the 
truth, certainly what the Church believes to be of the faith is 
without doubt of the faith; but nothing is of the faith except 
that which God has revealed through apostles or prophets, or 
which is evidently derived from those sources.’’! In other 
words, the fact that a dogma is held, proves its right to be 
held, proves that it is based on apostolic tradition, if no clear 
authority for it can be found in the written Word. Now, as 
a dogma must be held universally in the Roman Catholic 
Church, which has been promulgated by pope and council, or 
even by the pope alone, it is obvious that, on this basis, tra- 
dition is practically superseded by church authority, or the 
prerogative of the ecclesiastical monarch. The pope may be 
presumed, by his subjects, to have discovered that history is 
on the side of his dogmatic determinations, but he cannot be 
required to give any proof that such is the fact. The old 
tests of valid tradition set forth by Vincentius — uxzversttas, 
antiquitas, and consensio — may be discarded. The decree of 
the chief official authorizes theological inference to leap over 


1 De Verbo Dei, Lib. iv. cap. 9. 


REVELATION. 155 


all the intervening centuries, and to claim at once the author- 
ity of the apostles. This exposition of Bellarmin has not, 
indeed, been formally approved by the Roman Catholic Church. 
But convenience has commended it to a considerable number 
of theologians,! and it takes small discernment to discover 
that it rules in practice. If tradition were more than an 
empty name, dogmas which are contradicted by the whole 
tenor of the teaching of Christian antiquity, as are those of 
the immaculate conception of the Virgin and the infallibility 
of the pope, would never have been proclaimed as part and 
parcel of divine revelation, and made binding upon all the 
faithful 

A veritable tradition, in the sense of Vincentius, receives as 
scanty recognition in Newman’s description of doctrinal de- 
velopment as in Bellarmin’s theory and in Romish practice. 
In the famous essay by which he sought to justify to his mind 
the Roman Catholic faith, Newman allows the most indetermi- 
nate datum to serve as the primary basis of an authoritative 
dogma. In contrast with the ordinary assumption of popes 
and councils, he grants that some of the most characteristic 
features of Romanism started from obscure beginnings, and 
attained to their ultimate status of definite and acknowledged 
doctrines only by a prolonged growth. The shadowy begin- 
nings and long obscurity, he claims, do not contradict the 
right or legitimacy of these features, provided the development 
is known to have proceeded with sufficient continuity, and by 
the assimilation of congenial materials. Among his tests of 
normal development he makes no mention of judicious pro- 
portion, and in his whole treatise practically discards the no- 
tion that corruption or caricature may be induced by excess. 
It matters not, for example, at what point respect for the 
Virgin began. It may have begun at so low a point that, in 
the early liturgies, she was included among the imperfect dead 


1 The Jesuit, Perrone, and Malou, Bishop of Bruges, are examples, among oth- 
ers. See Friedrich, Geschichte des Vatikanischen Konzils, Band I. cap. xxii. 


156 LEADING PRESUPPOSITIONS. 


for whom the prayers of the Church were offered! This is 
no obstacle. It was a perfectly normal development, which 
added one degree of respect to another, until at length the 
Virgin was recognized as the crowned queen of heaven, to pray 
for whom would be a species of sacrilege, since nothing is 
wanting to her exaltation and blessedness, and all need the 
invincible efficacy of her intercessions. 

On the score of this method what conceivable degree of 
remoteness from the spirit and teaching of primitive Christi- 
anity can be a barrier to accepting a tenet or sanctioning a 
practice? If from the act-of praying for Mary as a sharer in 
the imperfect lot of humanity the Church may legitimately 
advance to the act of worshipping her as the Mother of God 
and the fountain of grace, surely it is not clear why it may not 
also advance from the visitation of ordinary ecclesiastical pen- 
alties on refractory Christians to the banishing, the torturing, 
the burning alive of heretics. In short, Newman’s tests of 
normal development apply to the latter instance much better 
than tothe former. To pass from a lighter to a severer order 
of penalties involves no such leap as to pass from the practice 
of praying for the Virgin to an attitude of mind in which that 
practice must be rated as a sacrilege. 

The Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, by 
Newman, is the one-sided plea of a disquieted spirit bent upon 
securing a basis of dogmatic rest, and artificially manipulating 
the evidence to that end. All the truth which it contains is 
provided for, and at the same time guarded against exaggera- 
tion and abuse, in the doctrine which has been outlined respect- 
ing the function of the Christian consciousness. 


1“ Prayers for the faithful departed may be found in the early liturgies, yet 
with an indistinctness which included St. Mary and the martyrs in the same rank 
with the imperfect Christian whose sins were as yet unexpiated; and succeeding 
times might keep what was exact and supply what was deficient.” (Essay, p. 354.) 


Wart KX. 


re WOCLRINE OR GOD @AND: OF (HIS 
RELATION TO THE WORLD 
AT LARGE. 


yi E es f" ve vey nh 


y oy) i, 


Ai 7 id 
Sar afd 
Ah AS a 
vival hie 


om fo 
, bia (obi 
taal mS ff ae : 


Foye ia 

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‘Ve (at; bate teks rie 
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bap yi hol Bae 


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Part LK. 


THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AND OF HIS 
RELATION TO THE WORLD 
AT LARGE. 


CHAT ERT 
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 


I. — REASONS FOR CONCLUDING THAT THE THEME OF THE 
CHAPTER LIES WITHIN THE SPHERE OF POSSIBLE 
KNOWLEDGE. 


Ir the main contention in each of the preceding chapters 
can be regarded as established, the legitimacy of an attempt 
to explore the divine attributes follows as a matter of course. 
It would be absurd to confess entire ignorance on this subject 
after being certified that a personal God exists, and that He 
has vouchsafed a specific as well as a general revelation of 
Himself. Even the bare affirmation that God exists cannot 
consistently be uttered except on the assumption of some 
knowledge of God; otherwise we should say just as much if 
we should substitute for the word “God” in the affirmation 
an algebraic symbol, or some untranslated and untranslatable 
hieroglyphic. In the statement sometimes made, “ We know 
that God is, but do not know what He is,’’ the second member 
cannot stand without emptying the first of all meaning, and 


159 


160 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


therefore, of all warrant, unless it is warrantable for rational 
beings to frame propositions in which unintelligible sounds 
take the place of subjects. 

Doubtless there is a liability of presuming upon a larger 
knowiedge of God than is really attainable under earthly con- 
ditions. A vainglorious gnosticism is possible, as well as a 
falsely humble — or, perhaps, boastful — agnosticism. If we 
confine our attention to the nineteenth century, we must allow 
that the former preceded and was largely responsible for the 
latter. . The idealistic philosophies of the early part of the cen- 
tury scarcely stopped short of the claim of having found out 
God to perfection. Schelling and Hegel set forth, as the 
proper aim and achievement of philosophy, an all-embracing 
metaphysic of the absolute. Naturally as the doubtful ten- 
dencies of their speculations became manifest, there was a 
revolt in not a few minds against their fundamental assump- 
tion. In the reaction some passed to the opposite extreme. 
This was notably the case with Dean Mansel. Having defined 
God as the absolute and the infinite, and having characterized 
the absolute as that which exists in and by itself without neces- 
sary relations to any other being, the infinite as that which is 
free from all possible limitation, he proceeded to deduce such 
conclusions as the following: The absolute and the infinite 
cannot, as such, be a cause. For the cause exists only in rela- 
tion to the effect. But the conception of the absolute implies 
a possible existence out of all relation. If it be said that the 
absolute was first alone and afterwards became a cause, this 
contradicts the idea of the infinite, as implying that God was 
not from the first all that it was possible for Him to be. 
Again, the absolute as cause cannot be necessitated, for this 
implies relation ; neither can it be voluntary, for this implies 
consciousness, which is only conceivable as a relation. From 
these considerations it follows necessarily that the ideas of 
creation and personality are inconsistent with that of the abso- 
lute and infinite. Still, it is our duty to think of God as per- 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 161 


sonal, and to believe that He is infinite. This means that we 
must renounce a speculative knowledge of God and content 
ourselves with “regulative’’ notions which are suitable to our 
present training, but cannot be known to be truly descriptive 
of the divine nature.’ Sir William Hamilton took essentially 
the same position. Herbert Spencer heartily approved the 
negative side of Mansel’s reasoning, only qualifying it at one 
point and aggravating it at another. He thought it necessary 
to allow that our thought of the absolute is not purely negative, 
as it was, at least in some connections, assumed to be by 
Mansel. We have, he said, a positive, though indefinite con- 
sciousness, of the absolute. But, on the other hand, he would 
not allow this consciousness to count in the slightest degree 
for knowledge, and was more dogmatic than Mansel ventured 
to be in declaring the utter unlikeness of our conceptions to 
the fundamental reality of the universe. Mansel remarked: 
“We cannot say that our conception of the divine nature ex- 
actly resembles that nature in its absolute existence; for we 
know not what that absolute existence is. But, for the same 
reason, we are equally unable to say that it does not resemble 
it; for, if we know not the absolute and infinite at all, we can- 
not say how far it is, or is not, capable of likeness or unlike- 
ness to the relative and finite.” This chance for some partial 
appropriateness in our conceptions respecting the absolute 
seems to have been repudiated by Spencer; for he spoke of 
the obligation to treat every notion of the absolute, which we 
may frame, as utterly without resemblance to that for which 
it stands.? 

Mansel regarded himself as giving to faith what he took 
away from knowledge; and even Spencer assumed that his 
theory was advantageous to religion, as assigning to it a field 
of perfectly inscrutable mystery, where it can suffer no oppo- 


1The Limits of Religious Thought. See also Sheldon’s History of Christian 
Doctrine, II. 304-306. 
2 First Principles, pp. 94, 113.- 


162 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


sition from science, it being a maxim of science that no expo- 
sition of the nature of the absolute can be given. But faith 
can never be advantaged by denying the conceivability of its 
supreme object, and religion cannot be made secure by reduc- 
ing its subject-matter to pure mystery. Much of mystery 
may indeed be included in the objects of religious contempla- 
tion ; nevertheless, a religion of sheer mystery is an impossi- 
bility. As Pfleiderer has remarked: “It is true enough that 
there is always an element of mystery in religion, and that a 
God who should be completely and exhaustively known by our 
finite intellect would be no God. But it is equally certain 
that a religion of nothing but mystery is an absurdity, and 
that the absolutely ‘unknowable’ wants simply every quality 
necessary for the object of a positive religious relation.” } 
Very little qualification needs to be put upon the strong words 
of Bowne: “A God who must always remain x for thought 
and conscience has no more religious value than a centaur or 
a sea-serpent.’’? A vital impulse to seek for a real relation 
with a being thus conceived is out of the question. To as- 
similate God to an infinite void is, by logical consequence, to 
reduce religion toward an absolute blank. Small children may 
make play-houses for the sport of tearing them down; but 
sane and serious men will not trouble themselves to think 
about God, if they must forthwith cancel their thoughts as in 
no wise presenting Him in His real nature. 

The agnostic doctrine under consideration may be regarded 
as the counterpart of the ontological argument for the exis- 
tence of God. As that argument affects to prove the divine 
existence by definition, so this doctrine goes to work by means 
of a definition to remove God practically out of existence, as 
shutting out all knowledge of Him. The method is too easy- 
going, in the latter case no less than in the former. Let the 
gratuitous difficulties be avoided which are involved in a 


1 Philosophy of Religion, II. 1g§9. 2 Review of Herbert Spencer, p. 25. 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 163 


strained definition of God as absolute and infinite, let “abso- 
lute ’’ denote simply the absence of dependent or enforced 
relations, and “infinite” signify simply the absence of all 
limits not imposed by the divine will or the divine perfections, 
and the agnostic argumentation is at once robbed of its for- 
midable look. With that use of terms a standing-room will be 
provided both for the individual in his contemplation and for 
the God contemplated ; and it will not be necessary for ene 
to make so grotesque a sacrifice as the exclusion in thought 
of himself, of all finite things, and of the highest perfections 
of the most perfect one, such as self-consciousness, before he 
can conceive of God as absolute and infinite. 

Agnostic terminology is not a recent invention. Some of 
the fathers and the scholastics laid so strong an emphasis 
upon the divine transcendence as seemingly to place knowl. 
edge of the real nature of God beyond the reach of human 
faculties. An examination of their total representation, how- 
ever, will reveal that in most instances their thought was not 
unlike that of Bonaventura, who allowed a cogunitio per appre- 
henstonem as contrasted with a cognitio per comprehensionem, 
that is, an apprehension or partial knowledge of God, as con- 
trasted with a comprehension or exhaustive knowledge.! 

Besides indulging in an incautious emphasis upon the tran- 
scendence of God, some of the patristic and scholastic writers 
paid tribute to agnosticism by the unmeasured stress which 
they placed upon the simplicity of the divine essence. Indeed, 
this intemperate stress became a theological habit which 
reached far into the modern era. Augustine afforded a very 
positive example of this order of teaching. In his anxiety to 
exclude utterly the accidental and the composite from God, he 
ruled out all distinctions within the divine essence, and so made 
the attributes coincident the one with the other. ‘God is 
truly called,” he says, “in manifold ways, great, good, wise, 


—— 


1 Sent. I. 3. 1. 1. 


104 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


blessed, true, and whatsoever other things seem to be said of 
Him not unworthily; but His greatness is the same as His 
wisdom, for He is not great by bulk, but by power: and His 
goodness is the same as His wisdom and greatness, and His 
truth the same as all those things; and in Him it is not one 
thing to be blessed, and another to be great, or wise, or true, 
or good, or, in a word, to be Himself.’”’! In more recent times 
Schleiermacher has carried out the notion of the divine sim- 
plicity with equal rigor. ‘All the attributes,” he says, “which 
we attribute to God, designate nothing special in Him, but 
only something special in the manner of relating to Him 
our feeling of dependence.... The divine thinking is just 
the same as the divine willing, and omnipotence one with 
omniscience.’”’ 2 

Now this line of representation evidently conducts logically 
to agnosticism. If there is no real distinction between the 
attributes which we ascribe to God, if they express nothing 
more than our varied points of view, then, of course, it follows 
that we have no authentic exposition of the divine nature, and 
are left with the bare notion of essence or being. Such a 
notion makes an utterly fruitless field for theological science, 
and is also adverse to a practical religious interest. As Dorner 
remarks: ‘The acceptance of the objectivity of the divine at- 
tributes does not simply concern the interests of apprehension, 
but even religion demands just that acceptance, and checks 
absolute identification. Evangelical faith does not allow an 
identification of righteousness with love or grace, but a dis- 
tinction between them without separation. So, undoubtedly, 
volition and knowledge are united in God, but to identify the 
two would be equivalent to saying that what God knows He 
also wills, an inference which is not permissible as regards 
evil. The divine knowledge has a wider reach than the divine 
will, without imperilling the unity of God. He comprehends 


1 De Trin. vi. 7. 2 Der Christliche Glaube, §§ §0, 55. 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 165 


evil in His knowledge, although not in His desire, and evil is 
therefore not embraced in his creative will.” ! 

The Neo-Platonic conception of a predicateless ground, or 
blank identity, is remote from the legitimate conception of the 
Supreme Being. It in no wise provides for self-motion or life. 
The thought of the living God does not lie in that direction. 
Variety in unity must be characteristic of God, as of every 
living spirit.2 The variety does not cancel the unity, and 
means only that spirit in its affluence has in itself the fitting 
grounds of varied activities and manifestations. The attributes 
of the infinite Spirit are indeed through and through essen- 
tial, having naught of the accidental, which pertains more or 
less to finite and changing being. But to esteem them essen- 
tial, it is not necessary to melt them into a common mass, or 
to dissipate them into a common void. They are essential, as 
being inalienable, unchanging perfections of God — abiding 
characteristics of His being, or grounds of His activities and 
manifestations in the world. 

A qualified agnosticism is involved in the platform of one of 
the latest of the prominent leaders of theological thought in 
Germany. According to Ritschl, theology attempts a vain 
and foreign task when it essays to consider what God is in 
Himself or for Himself. It has only to consider what God is 
for us, as made known through His Son, and the kingdom of 
grace which He established. Its sphere is defined by the 
measure of practical value, or by what God is for the individual 
and the religious community. 

This description, it may be conceded, sets forth the theme 
which is of preéminent religious interest. But both the pro- 
priety and the practicability of the limitation which it empha- 
sizes may be questioned. The fact that God is the highest 
object of thought, and the presupposition of all things, makes 


1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 15. 
2 Compare the still broader statement by Schurman: “Identity in difference is 


the characteristic both of being and of thought.” (Belief in God, p. 75.) 
12 


166 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


the investigation of His nature an object of supreme intel 
lectual interest. Nor is this investigation foreign to a religious 
interest. Convinced that all in God calls for wonder and rev- 
erence, the religious mind is naturally impelled to press as far 
as possible into the sanctuary of the divine nature. Nothing 
can repress this inquiry, where there is any fullness of intel- 
lectual or religious life, except despair of all real understand: 
ing of the divine. That the history of speculation enforces 
modesty and prudence in philosophizing about God may be 
granted ; but that it enjoins despair of reaching valid concep- 
tions about what God is ins Himself is not so clear. We sur- 
mise that, in spite of the Ritschlian protest, and of every form 
of agnosticism, the human spirit will continue its attempt to 
explore the essential nature of God, and that this effort, if 
joined with the spirit of piety, will serve as a noble means of 
development.! 

The Scriptures do not ignore the mystery which pertains 
to the divine nature ;? but in teaching that man was made in 
the divine likeness, that he is a candidate for communion with 
God, and may stand before Him in the relation of sonship,? 
they present ample grounds for inferring a real knowledge of 
God. To deny the possibility of such knowledge, one must 
go in the face of the scriptural implications, and assume that 
there is no discoverable likeness, no possibility of communion, 
no genuine relation of spiritual sonship. The likeness implies 
that self-understanding on man’s part must lead to some under- 
standing of God, while communion and sonship necessitate the 
conclusion that there is that in God which corresponds to 
intelligence and love in man. 


1 Compare Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology, chap. VI. 

2 Job xi. 7-9, xxiii. 8,9; Ps. xcvii. 2, cxxxix. 6, cxlv. 3; Isa. xl. 13, 14, 28; 
Rom. xi. 33-36; 1 Cor. ii. 11; Eph. iii. 20; 1 Tim. vi. 16. 

* Gen.. i, '26,;27 3. Col.: til, .10.;: John xiv. 23: sii john i 3} \Provotites aes 
Isa. Ixiii. 16; Hos. i. 10; Matt. vi.g; Luke xv. 11-32; Acts xvii. 28; Gal. iv. 6; 
I John iii. 1; Heb. ii. 10, xii. 7, 8, 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 167 


The discussion leads to the conclusion that a real, though 
limited, knowledge of God can and must be affirmed. The 
limitation of the knowledge doubtless leaves open the door for 
amendment at one point and another. But knowledge is not 
entirely despoiled of its claim to reality because of the possi- 
bility of more or less amendment. Men who lived before the 
era of modern geological science, and before the establishment 
of the Copernican theory, had some real knowledge of the 
world, even though there was a chance for a great enlargement 
and perfecting of their views. 


Il. — Tue METAPHYSICAL OR NON-ETHICAL ATTRIBUTES. 


The divine attributes fall into two groups, those which are 
not immediately suggestive of the ethical side of divine per- 
sonality, and those which directly describe that side. The 
two groups are sometimes distinguished as the metaphysi- 
cal and the moral —a phraseology whose intent can hardly 
be misunderstood, though its strict propriety may perhaps be 
called in question. It is not denied that a full consideration of 
one or another of the former group may touch on the ethical 
domain. The ethical, however, is not central to their idea. 

On the side of the non-ethical attributes we may enumerate 
unity, spirituality, immutability, omnipresence, eternity, omni- 
science, and omnipotence. 

The unity of God signifies His solitariness in the rank 
of original and independent being. It denotes that He is no 
aggregate or complex of separable units, and that all beside 
Him is conditioned upon His will and power, so as to be in no 
proper sense coordinate with Him or entitled to share His 
name. The term is not a veto upon interior distinctions in 
the original and independent Being. As has just been argued, 
a blank homogeneity is foreign to the notion of a living God. 
Just how far distinctions may reach without compromising 


168 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


unity is not a subject for indubitable speculative determina: 
tion. It is evident, however, that a perfect unity excludes 
the possibility of schism or antagonism within the circle of 
the Godhead, and that nothing in God can conceivably be 
separated from Him, any more than an essential function of 
an organism can be eliminated without cancelling the idea 
of the organism. In developing the cosmological argument 
for the divine existence notice was taken of the main grounds, 
aside from the scriptural teaching,! for assuming the unity 
of God. 

From the notion of unity to that of spirituality is but a 
short step. If matter existed from eternity independent of 
God, then, of course, it is forever set over against Him as a 
kind of second deity, instead of constituting any part of His 
being. If it was freely created by Him, it can hold to Him 
no higher rank than that of an instrument or contingent 
adjunct. To suppose it to be eternally inherent in God as a 
necessary constituent of the divine life is to disparage the 
self-sufficiency of spirit, and to import a dualism into God by 
placing alongside His will a second source of energy. This 
is a gratuitous obscuring of the divine unity which has been 
especially characteristic of theosophic speculation. Jacob 
Boehme, for example, argued that life and movement cannot 
have place in God without multiplicity or contrasts ; that the 
proper contrast of spirit is nature; that in God, accordingly, 
as the other, or counterpart of spirit, a nature eternally sub- 
sists ; that this is made up of an infinite plenitude of powers, 
seven of which are fundamental; that the nature thus con- 
ceived is at once a condition of vital self-consciousness in 
God and the antecedent of the sensible world, the energetic 
potency which is the fons originis of matter as known by us.” 


1 Deut. iv. 35, vi. 4; Ps. Ixxxvi. 10; Isa. xlv. 22; John xvii. 3; 1 Cor. viii. 
5-6; 1 Tim. ii. 5. 

2 For a brief summary of the views of Boehme and Baader, see Sheldon’s His- 
tory of Christian Doctrine, II. 406-411. 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 169 


Franz von Baader held a like view, and contended that it was 
adapted to render good service to theistic philosophy, since it 
represents God as having in Himself an adequate means of 
self-revelation, and leaves, therefore, no occasion to suppose 
that He needs the creature, as pantheistic schemes assume, 
in order to become revealed to Himself. But a proper con- 
ception of the vitality and sufficiency of spirit in itself, and 
especially of the infinite Spirit, is the best antidote to pan- 
theistic naturalism. In view of the objections which lie 
against the theosophic doctrine of an eternal nature, which 
serves as an other to spirit, and is the indispensable condition 
of real self-consciousness in God, it seems incumbent upon us 
to take our Lord’s declaration, ‘‘God is a Spirit,’’! in an un- 
qualified sense.” 

The divine immutability is definitely asserted in the Scrip- 
tures, especially by James when he describes God as ‘the 
Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither 
shadow that is cast by turning.’’? This is a vivid rhetorical 
expression of the steadiness of the divine nature and adminis- 
tration as opposed to man’s wavering character and conduct. 
It is in no wise to be understood as predicating immobility of 
God, a notion with which the Scriptures have not the slightest 
sympathy. 

The idea of motionless fixity is also foreign to a philosophi- 
cal contemplation of the divine immutability. Personal life is 


1 John iv. 24. 

2 Delitzsch endeavored to overcome the dualism involved in Boehme’s specu- 
lation, and at the same time to maintain that something analagous to corporeity 
is eternally connected with God. The ‘‘ glory of God” mentioned in the Scrip- 
tures denotes, as he conceived, something pertaining to God in his pre-mundane 
existence. It is the eternal reflection of the triune God, “the manifestation of 
His loving nature creating for itself out of itself a means and an instrument of 
revelation.” The process takes place with, not apart from, the will of God. (Bib- 
lical Psychology.) This representation provokes a question, not so much re- 
specting the possibility of its truth, as respects the warrant for assuming it to be 
true. 

3 James i. 17. Compare Ps, xxxiii. 11; Mal. tii. 6. 


170 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


inconceivable as a standstill, and least of all can God, as the 
highest embodiment of personal life, be appropriately repre- 
sented as an unmoving expanse of being. Moreover, a fixity 
of this sort is excluded by the thought that God is the creator 
of the world and holds to it a real relation. The theistic con- 
ception of creation as a free act supposes a specific exercise of 
divine efficiency, while a real relation to the world points not 
only to a constant and immeasurable activity, but also to adap- 
tations of that activity to exigencies which must arise in a 
system that includes free agents among its constituents. Even 
the most thoroughgoing deism, while removing God afar off 
from the world-process, does not escape the necessity of affirm- 
ing a variation of the divine activity; for in making God to 
recede from the created world, it represents Him as parting 
from the relation which He must have held and the agency 
which He must have exercised in the act of creating. Phil- 
osophical thinking may indeed object to the propriety of sub- 
ordinating the divine activity to any such law of temporal 
succession as rules finite consciousness ; but it has no word to 
offer against the most positive conception of the vastness, con- 
stancy, variety, and manifold adaptation of that activity. 

Immutability implies that God in all His activities must 
remain the same, too perfect either to increase or to wane, 
either to transcend Himself or to fall below Himself. Ethi- 
cally applied His immutability signifies the absolute indefecti- 
bility of His goodness and righteousness. 

In considering the divine omnipresence we need to revert 
to the root idea of substance. This is undoubtedly causality. 
That which does, or can do, nothing is simply the void, a mere 
nonentity. Being is defined by the modes and the measure 
of its activity. As was observed in another connection, great- 
ness depends, not on space-filling bulk, but on range of action 
possible or actual. Now God is the one agent whose range 
of action is unlimited. This is the meaning of His omnipres- 
ence. He is present to all things as acting immediately 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 171 


upon all things. What makes distance to us is the limitation 
of our power of immediate action. For God no such limita- 
tion exists. One thing therefore is just as near to Him as 
another, or, to say the same thing in different terms, He is 
equally present to all things. This point of view was well 
expressed by Thomas Aquinas. ‘God is in all things,’ he 
says, “not indeed as part of their essence, or as accident, but 
as an agent is present to that upon which he acts. . . . God by 
the excellence of His nature is above all things, and yet is in 
all things, as cause of their being.” } 

In the Scriptures heaven is represented as the peculiar 
abode of God.?_ But this may be regarded as another way of 
describing a special sphere of the manifestation of God, or of 
the apprehension of His presence and glory. His transcen- 
dence of space limitations is not overlooked in the Bible. On 
the contrary, He is described therein as one whom the heaven 
of heavens cannot contain, and from whose presence there is 
no possible escape in height or depth, in region swept by the 
wings of the morning or covered by the darkness of night.® 

The eternity of God indicates primarily that His being is 
without beginning or end; and secondarily that the experience 
of time, which is a necessity in the consciousness of a limited 
being, is not a necessity for the divine consciousness. The 
ground for including the latter element in the idea of the divine 
eternity is the rational consideration, that an experience of 
time can have place only where there is a consciousness of suc- 
cession, and that this consciousness is unavoidable only where 
there is something less than a full and immediate grasp of all 
knowable objects. Conceiving of God as perfect, or exempt 
in His nature from the law of growth, and as having perfect 
knowledge of Himself, we seem forced to admit that experi- 


1 Sum. Theol. I. 81. 

2 Deut. xxvi. 15; 1 Kings viii. 30; Neh. ix. 27; Job xxii. 12; Ps. xxaiii. 13, 
xxx. 14, cxv. 3; Isa. Ixvi. 1; Amos ix. 6: Matt. v. 45, vi. 9. 

8 1 Kings viii. 27; Ps. cxiii. 6, cxxxix.; Jer. xxiii, 23, 24. 


172 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


ence of time must be foreign to Him, if He be viewed by 
Himself, or as to the essential mode of His consciousness. All 
reality being known, and perfectly known, no new factor could 
come in to effect the impression of succession. In this view 
the eternity of God has to be conceived as timelessness. 

A complete theory, however, cannot stop with this line of 
representation. It must consider the knowledge of God as 
determined, not merely by what He is in Himself, but by His 
relation to the world. Having created a world in which a tem- 
poral order prevails, He cannot be supposed to ignore His own 
workmanship, or to be unconscious of its character as chang- 
ing and temporal. He must know what the experience of 
time is to men, and in the due administration of His kingdom 
must accommodate His acts to their consciousness of succession. 
To shut out from His view distinctions of before and after 
would be to limit His vision to something less than the sum 
of reality; for these distinctions, if they are not real in any 
other sense, are at least so as matters of the mental experience 
of finite beings. It may be difficult to adjust this truth to 
the foregoing thought, that the essential mode of the divine 
consciousness does not imply succession. Still, it is not ap- 
parent that the two views are contradictory. God by Him- 
self and God with the world are different objects of contem- 
plation, and it is only reasonable to suppose that the con- 
templation should correspond to the diversity of the objects, 
that an addition of the temporal to the eternal should modify 
in some sort the divine cognition. This is not saying that in 
its mode the divine cognition is assimilated to the human, but 
only that real account is made in the divine contemplation of 
the element of temporality in finite experience. A conclusion 
of this sort does not impeach the divine absoluteness, for the 
world has being only through the will and power of God. 

By virtue of His foreknowledge, God may indeed be con- 
ceived as grasping at once the successive events of the world 
process. But His relation to this process is not merely specu- 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 173 


lative or ideal. It is practical as well. God is the living, 
working God, and not simply a mirror so adjusted that all 
events are reflected therein simultaneously. He orders the 
times and the seasons. His efficiency blends with the stream 
of events and shapes its course. This efficiency is exercised 
with constant respect to the time limitations of men, and could 
not otherwise attain its end. The foreknowledge of God, 
therefore, cannot be regarded as so relating Him to the chang- 
ing realities of the world that He gives no sort of recognition 
to succession, 

The eternity of God, as contrasted with the evanescent 
things of the world, is a subject for contemplation at once 
comforting and awe-inspiring. In the Scriptures it is very 
strikingly presented in both of these aspects.! 

The notion of infinitude or perfection, when applied to that 
of knowledge, involves the conclusion that God’s knowledge 
comprehends all the knowable, — all the actual in Himself and 
in the world, and all the possible that is founded in His will. 
Genuine theists are commonly agreed in giving the divine 
omniscience this compass. That on which they differ is the 
question concerning the relation of God’s knowledge to the free 
acts of creatures, the question whether such acts are knowable 
before they occur, and if so, on what grounds. Those who 
deny freedom out and out evidently find no problem here. 
Leaving aside this party we have three opinions to notice. 

The first theory may be called the Arminian by way of in- 
telligible antithesis to the second. It would not be much of 
a misnomer, however, to call it the catholic theory, since it 
was the current theory in the pre-Reformation Church from 
the apostolic age onwards, has been generally held among 
Lutherans and Anglicans, and is still dominant in the Greek 
and Roman Catholic communions. This theory emphasizes 
the power of contrary choice as a constituent of human free- 





1 Deut. xxxiii, 27; Ps, xc. 1-4, cii. 26-28; Isa. lvii. 15; 1 Tim. vi. 16; Rev. i. 8. 


174 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


dom, and hence affirms that foreknowledge of free acts, so 
called, is a foreknowledge of acts properly contingent, or such 
as might not have been wrought on the occasion of their occur- 
rence. Its advocates hold that God’s knowledge is intuitive, 
having as immediate grasp of the remotest member in a suc- 
cession as of the nearest, and not dependent on a process of in- 
ference from cause to effect. The possibility of His knowledge 
being thus intuitive and all-embracing they either confess to 
be an unqualified mystery, or attempt to explain by the assump- 
tion that the temporal sequence of events pertains entirely to 
our subjective view, that, intrinsically, or as presented to the 
divine intellect, events do not fall under time distinctions, and 
so may all be grasped in an undivided view. This is the most of 
an explanation that can be offered; but to many it will seem 
to contain a mystery scarcely less than the one which it under- 
takes to resolve. To objectors from this point of view it is at 
least pertinent to urge that any theory of time, to which resort 
may be made, will be found to tax the mind’s power of rational 
construction when all its implications are taken into the ac- 
count. It may be noticed also that the verdict of philosophy, 
to a very considerable extent, has been given in favor of the 
idealistic interpretation in question.! 

A supplement to the Arminian theory has sometimes been 


1 See Part I, Chap. I, Sect. V. From recent philosophical testimonies we 
cite the following: “In the sight of the eternal One, time vanishes altogether. 
He sees the past and future as one; at every moment he sees all causes and all 
effects. ... The true succession is lost in the inner relation, in the conditional 
order, to use Lotze’s terms, according to which the most remote and the most 
immediate are combined in His consciousness.” (Paulsen, Introduction to Phil- 
osophy, p. 368.) “The temporal form [of the cosmic process] as little requires 
temporal succession in the realizing activity as the spatial form requires spatial 
extension in the realizing activity. In both cases we come upon an unpicturable 
ground of the order, but we are not permitted to carry the factors of the phe- 
nomenal order into its ontological ground. Unless we are to lose ourselves in 
the infinite regress, all change must at last be referred to the changeless, the 
unchangeable source of change. ... We conclude that the activity whereby the 
temporal order is realized has no temporality in itself.” (Bowne, Metaphysics, 
second edit., pp. 190, 191.) 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 175 


proffered in the notion that God knows not only what will 
occur, but also what would occur on this or that supposable con- 
dition — the so-called sczentia media. But this is a question- 
able appendix in so far as the acts of free agents are included 
among the occurrences that belong with the imaginary con- 
ditions. The scriptural warrant for it is very slight, not being 
found in any controlling point of view, but only in isolated 
sentences which can be taken without violence as meaning 
something less than belongs to the notion in question. Thus 
a statement like that of Matthew xi. 21-23 may be regarded 
as a rhetorical way of emphasizing the hardness of heart which 
was manifested by the unbelieving Jews, and as expressing a 
consummate probability rather than a matter of direct and ab- 
solute insight. No sober-minded exegete will infer that Christ 
designed to say that each and every inhabitant of the non- 
Israelitish cities named would have repented if His mighty 
works had been wrought in them. What He meant to affirm 
was, doubtless, that the people of those cities would have been 
distinctively more receptive for a message accredited like His 
than were the contemporary Jews in Bethsaida and Caper- 
naum ; and this inference could be drawn without any excess 
of boldness by one who held in clear light the conditions of the 
two contrasted instances. In consideration of the purely illus- 
trative purpose of the comparison, an inference grounded in a 
supreme probability was adequate warrant for the terms em- 
ployed.’ While thus insufficiently founded in revelation the 


1 The statements contained in Luke xvi. 31 and Acts xxii, 18 do not neces- 
sarily imply an infallible foresight of what an individual would do under purely 
hypothetical conditions, but only such a general certainty as may result from an 
adequate knowledge of principles and facts. 1 Sam. xxiii. 12 may be explained 
on the ground that in a practical matter a decided probability was all that was 
needed to dictate a choice. One who was fully cognizant of the existing facts, 
and therefore cognizant of the well-nigh inevitable outcome, could properly direct 
the conviction of the inquirer to the safe alternative. No one of course supposes 
that God made answer in this case in audible words, but only that the conviction 
of the inquirer was directed to one alternative as against another. 


176 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


doctrine that God knows infallibly what free agents would do 
under purely hypothetical conditions is totally void of philo- 
sophical explanation ; since the ideality of time can be appealed 
to only in behalf of a possible foreknowledge (or knowledge) 
of those contingent events that actually take place, at one 
point or another, and so become part of the sphere of reality. 

The second opinion is the Calvinian, which makes the divine 
decrees the ground of the certain occurrence of all events, the 
voluntary actions of men included, and assumes that foreknowl- 
edge depends on the certainty thus established by the decrees 
of God. “He foresees future events,” says Calvin, “only in 
consequence of His decree that they should happen.” Many 
subsequent writers of the Calvinian school have indulged in 
equivalent statements. The objection to this theory is that 
it can escape a metaphysical difficulty only at the expense of 
an immense moral difficulty, and in any event involves a moral 
difficulty that cannot properly be regarded as of slight conse- 
quence. If the divine decrees, in making certain all the evil 
choices and acts of men, necessitate those choices and acts, 
then God is the cause of evil, and human responsibility is a 
fiction. On the other hand, if it be assumed that the divine 
decrees make certain, without necessitating, a metaphysical 
mystery, quite as formidable as that involved in the Arminian 
theory, is introduced. To make certain without necessitating — 
that is, objectively certain in the sense of the Calvinist —is to 
determine events to a particular course without employing any 
real causes of determination. Unless the decrees posit causes 
of human determinations, it is absolutely inscrutable how they 
can exclude their contingency. All that is accomplished, then, 
by the Calvinistic postulate, if a place is secured for moral and 
responsible action, is to shift mystery from one point to an- 
other. Instead of the puzzle as to how intellect can forecast 
the contingent, we have the puzzle as to how will can over- 


1 Inst. Bk. III. Chap. 23. 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 177 


come contingency, or make certain, without providing un- 
equivocal causes of determination. In fact, some of the more 
recent Calvinistic writers have as much as confessed that in 
point of escaping metaphysical difficulty their own theory has 
no advantage over the repudiated Arminian theory. ‘“ Within 
the moral sphere,” says Shedd, ‘the divine decree makes cer- 
tain without necessitating. ... The question how God does 
this cannot be answered by man, because the mode of the 
divine agency is a mystery to him.” } 

To complete the criticism against the Calvinian view, it 
must be noticed that any sacrifice of metaphysical explanation 
which may be coupled with it does not serve to clear it of grave 
moral implications. Suppose it be assumed, as is done by 
Shedd, that necessity is not imposed upon the acts of men by 
the divine decrees, it still remains true that the all-embracing 
decrees express the will of God, even if they do not indicate 
the mode of its execution. Accordingly they advertise that 
evil deeds, no less than good, are matter of His choice and 
purpose. 

The third opinion, conceding the proper contingency of the 
free acts of men, maintains that in the nature of things they 
cannot be foreknown, being as much excluded from the sphere 
of omniscience as contradictions are from the sphere of omnipo- 
tence. This was the theory of Socinus. More recently it 
has been favored by Rothe and Martensen, and advocated with 
great earnestness by L. D. McCabe. The one advantage of 
the theory is its avoidance of the speculative difficulty which 
is involved in the thought of intuitive foreknowledge, or imme- 
diate grasp of all coming events, on the part of God. The 
practical advantages which it is supposed to have over the 
Arminian theory are drawn mostly, not to say entirely, from 
illusory conceptions. The latter theory, for example, is charged 
with clouding over the divine benevolence and justice. “God 


’ 





1 Dogmatic Theology, I. 404. 


178 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


cannot be infinitely benevolent,” it is said, “if He creates in- 
dividual beings whom He foresees will be eternally miserable. 
...If from all eternity God foresaw that you were to be 
eternally miserable, and still, with all these terrible realities 
before Him, He allowed you to come into existence, it is the 
baldest mockery for Him to ask you to obey and worship Him, 
and to seek His favor and presence.”’ Before penning these 
lines, the writer should have asked himself, What kind of a 
concrete or specifically distinguished entity is that to which 
God can be introduced, or to which He can introduce Himself, 
and then subsequently decide whether that very entity shall 
be an entity, or come into existence? The supposed case 
presumes upon a too facile interchange between being and 
nothing. That which is a logical prius of foreknowledge can. 
not consistently be regarded as subject to choice after fore- 
knowledge. But foreknowledge of an individual as possessed 
of a distinctive self-developed character has for logical prius 
the creation of the individual, his implication in a system of 
reality, and the use, in a determinate way, of the moral oppor- 
tunities of a personal career. It is, therefore, contrary to the 
intrinsic conditions of foreknowledge to suppose any one of 
these particulars, the first no less than the others, to be still 
hinged on a divine choice, and capable of exclusion after 
(whether in a logical or temporal sense) the foresight of that 
which follows from the particulars. If Judas, the betrayer, 
was not actually to be, and to be precisely Judas the betrayer, 
God could not have foreknown him as such. To suppose 
God, therefore, to have refused to create him on account of 
his foreseen character, is to suppose God to have acted on the 
score of a reason which the supposition of non-creation makes 
it inconceivable that He should have been cognizant of. And 
so of any other concrete individual. God may be imagined to 
consider whether He shall create a being, or an order of 
beings, after some ideal pattern, but not an individual impli- 
cated in a given system of reality, and having a specific self- 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 179 


won character ; 22 that character, the individual can be intro 
duced to His contemplation only on condition that he is to be. 
Equally wide of the mark with the passage cited is the follow- 
ing: “No ruler ought to be angry with a subject before he 
has violated his law. But prescience makes God sit in judg- 
ment on me, sentence me, adjust my punishment, arrange for 
my endless abode in perdition with Satan, long before I com- 
mitted the least offense against His law.’’ To this the ob- 
vious reply is, that foreknowledge no more discards temporal 
intervals and the varying merits of the person who lives through 
those intervals than does post-knowledge. If the infallible 
memory of God does not prevent Him from viewing a man 
according to His changing character through the past, no 
more does His infallible prescience hinder Him from viewing 
a man according to the scale of his character in each suc- 
cessive interval of the time covered by the forecast. Wrath 
and judgment fall only where they are deserved no less in His 
foresight than in the regress of His thought. The passage in 
question makes a gratuitous and unwarrantable assumption 
that God must view as an indivisible unit things so widely 
distinguished as innocent personality, guilty personality with 
still existing capacities for good, and incorrigibly wicked 
personality. 

Two objections hold against the doctrine of the divine 
nescience. In the first place, it presents God as dwelling 
largely in the dark, learning by the common empirical method, 
and incapable of forecasting the outcome of the schemes 
which He has initiated. It is true that the opposing theory 
cannot altogether evade the thought of a divine venture. If, 
on the one hand, God cannot know altogether what he will do 
except as He foresees the acts of creatures, on the other 
hand, the knowledge of what He will do, so far as His acts 
are conditions of the existence and acts of creatures, must be 
logically antecedent to the knowledge of creatures and their 
doings. It seems necessary, therefore, to assume a sovereign 


180 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


choice of certain fixed elements, which condition free agency 
in the world, as the logical prius of the divine foreknowledge 
of contingent events. But this admission does not cancel all 
advantage on the side of the postulate of foreknowledge. The 
logical priority involves no temporal succession. From this 
point of view we are allowed to think of the whole sphere of 
reality as luminous to God from eternity —a conception which 
must be regarded as in itself more acceptable than the assump- 
tion that the future is like a dark hemisphere to Him whom 
we call the Omniscient. The main emphasis, however, be- 
longs to the second objection, namely, the incompatibility of 
the doctrine of nescience with the contents of revelation. The 
Bible teaches foresight of events that must be regarded as 
conditioned through and through upon the free agency of 
men. As has been shown, elements of distinct prediction are 
found in both Testaments. While an occasional assimilation 
of the divine to the human mode and measure of knowledge 
may appear, the Scriptures in their higher ranges represent 
God as having a reach of vision and certainty of plan which 
are irreconcilable with the notion that the future is largely 
veiled to His sight.2 The prophetical consciousness stands 
distinctly on the side of the assumption of complete fore- 
knowledge. Christ gave unequivocal expression to that con- 
sciousness when he intimated that the day of judgment is 
known to the Father. That is as much as saying that no 
order of events is hidden from His view. For, in proportion 
as the notion must be repudiated that He has fixed the time 
of the great judicial crisis arbitrarily, or without regard to the 
highest interests of the kingdom, it is necessary to conclude 
that His foresight embraces a vast complex of events whose 
course is thoroughly conditioned by the free agency of men. 

The omnipotence of God signifies that His power has no 


— 





1 Part I, Chap. ITI, Sect. VI. 
3 Ps, cxxxix. 2; Isa. xlvi. 10, xlviii. 3; Job xiv, 5; John vi. 64; Acts xv. 18; 
Rom, viii. 29; Heb. iv. 13; 1 Pet. i. 20. 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 181 


other limits than those which are imposed by rational and 
ethical perfection of nature and consistency of action. Within 
these limits, which really describe rather than restrict, we may 
take unqualifiedly the words of the gospel, ‘With God all 
things are possible.’’! For the vital sense and majestic ex- 
pression of God's unlimited might, the Old Testament writers 
stand unequaled in all literature.* 

The objection, as old as the days of Origen, that infinite 
power in God would involve imperfect self-knowledge, since it is 
the nature of knowledge to bound or to circumscribe, is based 
on a one-sided view of the infinite. The infinite in God is not 
an indefinite expanse, which cannot become definite except by 
being marked off and thereby losing its infinitude: it is rather 
the positive and definite by virtue of its essential character, or 
its intrinsic contrast with everything imperfect. The divine 
infinitude properly conceived, to repeat a previous statement, 
must be seen to involve perfect self-grasp as well as every other 
perfection. 

In pantheistic schemes, at least in those of the Spinozistic 
type, the denial of all free choice involves the limitation of 
the power of God to the sum of beings actually existent. 
The universe, as necessarily evolved, expresses perpetually all 
the ability to produce which belongs to God. Omnipotence 
from this point of view can be only another name for the 
causality back of the world. Thus it was understood by 
Schleiermacher.? But genuine theism, asserting as it does the 
transcendence as well as the immanence of God, must hold that 
the actual is not the full measure of the possible. Supposing 
God to be true person, it is perfectly conceivable, so far as 
mere power is concerned, that He could increase the sum of 
created being. Nor is it obvious that wisdom so conditions 


1 Matt. xix. 26. 
2 Job xxvi., xxxviii.; Ps. xxxiii.; Isa. xl.; Jer. xxxii. 17, 27. Compare Eph. 
iii. 20. 
8 Der Christliche Glaube, § 54. 
13 


182 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


the use of power as to leave no proper discretion or choice be- 
tween alternatives. In the realm of the non-ethical, especially, 
different schemes may stand so fully on a parity that nothing 
in God shall bar out the choice of any one among several. At 
any rate, before concluding positively that God was of neces- 
sity shut up to the existing world-plan, one needs to be assured 
that an equivalent for anything actual is speculatively incon- 
ceivable. 

Every species of dualism, quite as obviously as the panthe- 
istic point of view, circumscribes the power of God. A recent 
example has been afforded in the teaching of John Stuart Mill. 
The amount of evil in the world, he contended, makes it im- 
possible to admit both the benevolence of God and His om- 
nipotence, and it best suits the religious understanding to 
sacrifice the latter. Mill has doubtless directed to the alterna- 
tive which is practically most eligible, supposing the irrecon- 
cilable opposition which he predicates actually to exist. As to 
the fact of the opposition, it may be confessed that it is not 
easy to demonstrate that all things in the world harmonize at 
once with the thought of omnipotence and of perfect benevo- 
lence in the world’s Author. Still, the lesser difficulty does 
not lie on the side of Mill’s conclusion. His inference is 
counter to the philosophical demand for unity, is uncongenial 
to a living religious faith, and in the Christian outlook 1s 
opposed or obviated by the great facts of revelation.! 








1 Jt may be well to notice an objection against the propriety of the enumeration 
which has been given of the non-ethical attributes. It is alleged that spirituality is 
not properly mentioned as an attribute since God is in essence a spirit; also that 
unity, immutability, eternity, and omnipresence are not so much attributes as neces- 
sary inductions from the divine attributes or perfections. As regards the first point, 
the obvious response is that deing is a broader term than sfzrz¢, and that conse- 
quently there can be no logical impropriety in describing God as belonging to the 
spiritual order of being, in other words as having the quality or attribute of pure 
spirituality. The notion of spirituality, like that of materiality, may be composite; 
but the term actually describes to our minds the kind of being which God is, and 
so has a genuine attributive significance. As for unity, immutability, eternity and 
omnipresence, they each express that which is distinctive of God. Let it be granted 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 183 


III.— Tuer MoraL ATTRIBUTES. 


It was noticed among the arguments for the divine exis- 
tence! that the ethical in man presupposes an ethical person 
back of the world. Not only does the former require the 
latter for its explanation; it is immediately connected there- 
with by a practical bond. The sense of obligation and the 
feeling of merit or demerit impel to a recognition of a righteous 
will, an impersonation of moral order, which is above the indi- 
vidual and holds him accountable. 

The lesson which is taught by the moral experience of the 
individual is enforced by that of society at large. Moral bonds 
underlie the community life of men and are indispensable to 
its perpetuity. It is true that earthly success is often won in 
the way of unrighteousness, and that might seems repeatedly 
to have the victory over right. In view of the frequent dis- 
proportion between lot and conduct, it must be admitted that 
faith has a practical occasion to picture a throne of judgment 
lying beyond the earthly scene. Still, history abundantly illus- 
trates that the stability of society is dependent on morality, 
and that destruction approaches when moral bonds begin to 
be relaxed. It is as if the authority which said to the sea, 
«“ Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further,” had marked out 
the bounds of tolerance for states and empires, and opened a 
pit for all such as rush on heedlessly in the course of violence 
and iniquity. Taking events at a short range, and endeavor- 
ing to deal with details, interpretation easily becomes baffled. 
But history in its general outlines can be seen to enforce the 
thought that a righteous sovereignty is over the world. 
Healthy minds will ever sympathize with the prophetical 








that they do not stand for strictly independent aspects, or that they are seen to follow 
necessarily from other attributes or perfections; still, as being descriptive of divine 
peculiarities which are not immediately suggested by other terms, they are appropri- 
ately mentioned in the list of divine attributes. 

4 Part I, Chap, II, Sect. X. 


184 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


delineation of a majestic and righteous providence in the earth, 
as opposed to any pessimistic creed with its picture of a worth- 
less round of events. 

For the Christian consciousness the ethical character of 
God is of course as the sun in the heavens. He who possesses 
this consciousness would as soon think of blotting out all light 
and hope, and invoking self-annihilation, as of renouncing his 
faith that God is supremely ethical. 

To ascribe an ethical nature to God means something more 
than according to Him a recognition of moral distinctions and 
an administration which respects those distinctions. It means 
that moral feeling in God is codrdinate with His perfect knowl- 
edge and His unlimited power; that the leading phases of 
pure sentiment in men have their counterpart in Him; that 
He has positive delight in moral worth in accordance with His 
perception of its value, and a corresponding abhorrence of the 
morally vile. If this description be charged with anthropomor- 
phism, we have only to repeat what has been said before, that 
we dignify the idea of God far more by giving to it the best 
content which the analogy of our own spirits supplies, than by 
treating it ina nihilistic manner. Moreover, to rule out sensi- 
bility is to exclude the capacity for blessedness. God is and 
can be infinitely blessed only as there is in Him a plenitude 
of the most pure and lofty feelings. What places Him in 
contrast with men is the fact that feeling in Him is never out 
of reason or out of proportion, and so never becomes perturba- 
tion of mind. The deepest calm and the highest intensity are 
united and reconciled in Him ; for He is never out of harmony 
with Himself or disconcerted about His designs, and yet is so 
absolutely devoted to righteousness that He cannot be in the 
shghtest degree indifferent to moral conduct. 

A compendious expression for the ethical nature of God is 
given in the phrase Aoly Jove. With nearly equal propriety 
it might be defined as a loving righteousness. The meaning 
is not that holiness is strictly subsumed under love, or love 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 185 


under righteousness, but rather that the terms of either coup- 
let stand for closely related and perfectly harmonious perfec- 
tions. 

With holiness and righteousness a third term has a natural 
association, namely, justice. These are not so much names 
of clearly distinguished attributes as designations of the same 
fundamental aspect of the divine nature from somewhat dif- 
ferent points of view. The holiness of God expresses His 
stainless purity and absolute separation from all moral corrup- 
tion. It points to the truth that no impure person can stand 
before Him, and behold Him in any wise as He is, without 
being put to confusion and feeling that he is confronted by an 
infinite protest against his sin. The righteousness of God 
signifies that in His nature is the perfect standard of right, 
and that His will is always in absolute accord with that stan- 
dard. The attribute of justice involves the same conception 
with a more distinct emphasis upon the executive function of 
God’s righteous will in apportioning to moral agents the awards 
suitable to their conduct and character. The scriptural testi- 
mony to these aspects of the divine nature runs through the 
whole texture of the sacred books, and is also embodied in 
many distinct declarations.! 

Justice in the sense defined, as being an immanent charac- 
teristic of God, evidently cannot be denied or overruled. The 
only point which stands in doubt is the extent of its demands. 
Does it require as a condition of forgiveness that any sin should 
be offset by an equivalent rendered as a tribute to righteous- 
ness? Does it thus debar a culprit from the hope of securing 
reconciliation by any means of his own, inasmuch as he is 
under obligation to render a perfect service always, and can- 


AE xvi, xx. 5; exxivs 3730 Ley. xi 44545, xiee2, xx. 7, 26,,xxiig23. Dent. 
xxxii. 4; Job iv. 17, 18, xv. 15, xxv. 4-6, xxxiv. 12, 23; Ps. v. 4, xi. 7, xlviii. 10, 
Ixxi. 19, lxxxix. 14, cxlv. 17; Isa. vi; Ivii. 15; Ezek. xxxvi. 20-23, xxxix. 7; Hab. 
i. 13; Rom. ii. 2; 2 Cor. v. 10; Heb. xii. 14, 29; Jamesi. 13; I Pet. i. 15, 16; 
Rev. xvi. 7. 


186 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


not make good any deficit which may have been incurred ? 
Would the atoning work of a redeemer have been as needful, 
in view of the claims of divine justice, for the salvation of one 
sinner as for that of the race? Questions like these have 
often been answered with a decided affirmative. This has the 
advantage of seeming precision. But it is possible to construct 
too rigid a scheme in the name of divine justice. Points like 
the following need to be kept in mind: 1. In the recovery of 
a lapsed soul, grace must take the initiative. A full atonement 
cannot be made by the culprit, as being always obligated to 
render his best service. Atonement by another than the cul- 
prit cannot take the place of grace since the atonement must 
be provided or accepted by an exercise of free grace. 2. It 
follows then that, if lapsed souls are recovered, free grace is in 
fact exercised, and hence is not in itself incompatible with 
justice. 3. What justice requires is that grace should not be 
administered in a way that shall disparage the claims or en- 
danger the interests of righteousness. 4. There is nothing 
arbitrary in the supposition that a scheme of such vast conse- 
quence as the proclamation of universal amnesty to a race of 
sinners must appear in the sight of omniscience as disparaging 
to the claims of righteousness and perilous to its interests, 
unless these claims and interests should be emphasized by the 
very method in which the amnesty is published and made effec- 
tive, that is, by the method of atonement. 5. As atonement 
does not exclude grace, but rather concerns the method and 
conditions of its administration, it is conceivable that in connec- 
tion with some lesser exigency than the one supposed, for ex- 
ample, the recovery of a single lapsed soul, the grace might be 
applied apart from a special objective atonement, applied simply 
as illuminating and subduing influence, working penitence, 
faith, and love. The sense of ill-desert in such a recovered 
soul and its loathing for the sins abandoned would be a per- 
petual tribute to divine justice. Taking that one soul in its 
relations to God, we have no adequate warrant for saying that 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 187 


divine justice must insist upon any other tribute. It is said 
indeed that God must feel the same about pardoning one soul 
as about publishing pardon to a race of sinners, and could net 
make any different conditions for the one case than for the 
other. But this is hasty assumption. God’s feeling respect- 
ing a method is determined preéminently by the ethical and 
spiritual outcome which it is fitted to produce. A method 
which might answer in dealing with a single soul under special 
conditions might appear to the divine insight as inefficient and 
perilous to the ends of righteousness, when applied to the vast 
and complex theatre of a moral world. We conclude, then, 
that a normal conception of divine justice leaves room for ad- 
mitting the need of atonement in connection with a general 
scheme of pardon and restoration ; but, at the same time, we 
have little sympathy with the dogmatic assertion that in any 
conceivable case justice must exclude forgiveness apart from 
an atonement, such as is associated with the earthly vocation 
of Christ. 

A distinct relation is obviously to be asserted between 
divine justice and the punishment of sin. Supposing the 
subject of the infliction not to have reached the stage of in- 
corrigible wickedness, his punishment is not to be regarded as 
either exclusively retributive or exclusively corrective. It is 
rather both retributive and corrective, designed to manifest 
the divine displeasure against sin, and to discipline the sinner 
into a better life. 


The terms in which God’s ethical nature was defined above 
imply that it is wide of the mark to suppose any real oppo- 
sition between holiness, righteousness, or justice, on the one 
hand, and love on the other. In a being of limited vision and 
of imperfect intellectual and emotional balance an opposition 
of this kind may arise. But in God justice never denies love, 
and love is never contrary to justice. The punishment which 
justice asks for defeats no true interest of benevolence, and 


188 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


the grace which love bestows is not against, but for, the pro- 
motion of righteousness. Justice in its perfection cannot be 
indifferent toward any capacity for good, and love in its per- 
fection can have no complacency in aught that makes for 
moral evil and consequent injury. Thus divine justice and 
love are perfectly harmonious. The disjunction which has 
been pictured between them in many a homiletical strain must 
be repudiated in a philosophical view. 

The love of God takes on different aspects, and is described 
under different names, according to the relation in which it 
is presented. Viewed in relation to creatures generally it is 
goodness, good-will, or benevolence. Viewed in relation to the 
sinful and rebellious, it is mercy and long-suffering. Viewed 
in relation to those who are so in affinity with God as properly 
to be called His children, it is love in the sense of complacency 
and of spiritual union and communion. 

According to its ruling conception, love is a principle or 
disposition of self-impartation. The loving personality doubt- 
less always covets reciprocity, and in that sense desires pos- 
session. But this is in no wise incompatible with the benevo- 
lent impulse to self-impartation, since the attitude of responsive 
love on the part of the object of a holy affection offers the 
widest channel to the blessing and fruition which the loving 
personality is ready to contribute, and delights to contribute. 
With this consideration in view, we may approve the following 
definition: ‘Love is God’s desire to impart Himself and all 
good to other beings, and to possess them for His own in 
spiritual fellowship.” ! 

God’s love for sinners is a marvel, but not a contradiction. 
It is marvelous as having the unfathomable depth which per- 
tains to everything in God; it is consistent, however, inasmuch 
as it regards the possibilities of good in its subjects, the ideals 
that are in them potentially, the lineaments of the divine 


1 William N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 88. 


a i ee 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 189 


workmanship, visible through all the defacements of sin. 
Speaking of this ground of God’s love to sinners, Augustine 
has remarked: “ In a wonderful and divine manner, even when 
He hated us, He loved us ; for he hated us in as far as we were 
not what He Himself had made ; and because our own iniquity 
had not in every part consumed His work, He knew at once 
both how, in each of us, to hate what we had done, and to 
love what He had done.” ! 

In nature and ordinary experience there are innumerable 
things which publish the good will of God toward His crea- 
tures. But nature and experience include also much that is 
dark and enigmatica]. They are like a landscape over which 
many clouds pass. In general, there is a suggestion of light, 
but sometimes the shadows gather thickly, and threaten to 
banish all traces of brightness. Some better ground of con- 
fidence in the divine goodness than this changeful mirror is 
needed by the weak and short-sighted children of men. It 
is, moreover, a rational office of love to make itself known, 
for in disclosing itself it opens the richest source of blessing 
for those to whom it is directed. God’s love, therefore, was 
but true to itself, in coming to a full and unmistakable mani- 
festation. Above the plane of changeful circumstances the 
gospel story sets a mirror into which one may look and be 
secure of an ever-fresh and victorious assurance that “God is 
love.”’ 

The Old Testament contains abundant references to the 
goodness and tenderness of God.2 Scarcely anything more 
charming could be imagined than some of its delineations of 
the relation between Jehovah and Israel. But, in the general 
picture which it presents, justice and judgment share the fore- 
ground with mercy and compassion. In the New Testament, 


ee 


1 Tract. in Joan. cx. 6. 

2 Ex, xxxiv. 6,7; Deut. iv. 29; Jobv. 17-19; Ps. xxiil., xxv. 6, xxxvi. 5, 7, 
Ixxxvi. 5, ciii. 8, 13, 17, cviii. 4, cxxi., cxxxvi. 1, cxlv. 8,9; Isa. lxiii, 9, 16; Lam. 
iii, 22, 23; Hosea xi. 8; Joelii. 13; Micah vii. 18; Dan, ix. 9. 


I9gO GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


on the other hand, the scene of retribution is placed in the 
background, and the foreground is mostly occupied by the 
deed of love consummated in Jesus Christ.} 


IV.— RELATION OF WILL IN Gop To His NATURE, AND 
ALSO TO THE STANDARD OF TRUTH AND RIGHT. 


It belongs to the absoluteness of God that He should be 
indefectible in His moral nature. A holiness that might con- 
ceivably fail would be something less than absolute. It would 
also involve an infinite contradiction to the perfect knowledge 
of God to admit in Him any liability to the foolishness and 
lying vanity of sin. 

This thought les near to the problem of the relation of 
will to nature in God. How is that relation to be conceived ? 
Evidently all thought of temporal antecedence should be ex- 
cluded. Nature and will are both eternal. But, in the logical 
order, nature stands first. While there is nothing like me- 
chanical determination, the will finds its perfect standard in 
the intellectual and ethical nature of God. It is the require- 
ment of harmony and self-consistency that the will should 
always follow this standard. Indeed, the will would forsake 
its own absolute choice, should it swerve in the least from that 
standard, since, undoubtedly, it has elected the same to be 
eternally its rule of conduct. 

As in the personal life of men there is a union of necessity 
and freedom, so also in God. The ground of our rational and 
moral being is given us. Nevertheless we are not actually 
rational and moral persons apart from will or self-determina- 
tion in rational and moral lines. The same is true of God. 
« At every point the absolute will must be present to give 








1 Matt. i. 21, xxvi. 28; Luke ii. 10, 11, xv.; John i. 12, iii, 16, xii. 32; Rom. 
v. 8; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Eph. i. 7, ii. 4-8, iii. 19; Phil. ii, 6-8; 1 Pet. i. g-12, 18, 19; 
1 John iv. 9, 10, 16, 


DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. Ig! 


meaning to the otherwise powerless necessities of the Divine 
Being.” ! 

Since the will of God never decrees aught but truth and 
right, there can never be any practical occasion for His crea- 
tures to seek any other standard. But, speculatively, the 
divine will must be regarded as executive, rather than creative, 
of truth and right. This does not mean that they are beyond 
God ; for beyond Him there is absolutely nothing, and conse- 
quently neither truth nor error, neither right nor wrong. It 
means, rather, that truth and right express the rational and 
ethical nature of God. As implications of that nature they 
must appear, according to the tenor of the preceding discus- 
sion, logically prior to the determinations of the divine will. 
It does not lie within the province of that will to make or to 
unmake them. In this relation, the conclusion of Thomas 
Aquinas is much to be preferred to that of Duns Scotus and 
Descartes. 

A thought supplementary to the matter of the foregoing sections 
may fitly be added. ‘The divine interest may be regarded as being 
extended in full measure to the zsthetical domain. God is foun- 
tain and patron of the beautiful as well as of the right. Poetic 
sensibility and artistic gift have in Him their unfailing source. 


‘Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, p. 170. 


192 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION, 


CHAPTER II. 
TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS IN THE GODHEAD. 


I.— Tue HIstroricAL DATA FOR THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 


THE discussion of the divine attributes has emphasized the 
necessity of affirming distinctions in God. Sound philosophy 
has no objection to the scriptural implication that a certain 
manifoldness, along with unity, is characteristic of the Divine 
Being ; indeed it concludes that He must be thus conceived in 
a consistent representation of Him as living and self-conscious 
Spirit. Whether philosophy, in its explication of the general 
idea of God, can draw out precisely that theory of necessary 
distinctions which is expressed in the Christian doctrine o1 
the Trinity, is not so clear. At any rate, the doctrine of the 
Trinity has an historical basis, and is best approached from 
that side. Whatever word philosophy may have to offer on the 
subject is properly postponed till a review has been made of 
the historical data. 

The chief compendium of historical evidence in this relation 
is, of course, the New Testament. But it will not be imperti- 
nent to glance somewhat beyond the New Testament era, since 
the order of teaching which followed, if it appears relatively 
continuous and dominant, may be regarded as testifying to the 
dogmatic impulse which was received from the apostles and 
their colaborers. In the first place, we have to note the chain 
of testimony as it relates to the divinity of Christ. This we 
will follow in the regress order from the fourth century. 

As is well known, the specific task of the first ecumenical 


EE 





TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. i193 


council was the solemn declaration of the divinity of Christ. 
The creed which was subscribed at Niczea in 325 was designed 
to put the ban upon the Arian doctrine — which assigned 
Christ an intermediate rank between God and man, defining 
Him as the first and most exalted of creatures — and to bind 
the whole Church to the acknowledgment of the consubstan- 
tiality of the Son with the Father. If the necessity of promul- 
gating the creed proves that there was doubt respecting the 
divinity of the Son, the composition of the council shows that 
the doubt was far from representing the central current in the 
theology of the age. Out of the three hundred and eighteen 
bishops only seventeen were Arians,! and all but two of these 
seventeen were prevailed upon to sign the creed. It is true 
that in the contentions which followed the dissolution of the 
council it became apparent that a considerable fraction of 
the Eastern bishops favored what has been termed the Semi- 
Arian scheme. In estimating the significance of the Semi- 
Arian party, however, several facts should be borne in mind: 
namely, that it had very few cordial or voluntary adherents in 
the Latin Church; that the divergence of some of its members 
from the Nicene platform was rather technical than real, their 
dissatisfaction with the creed being due to what they regarded 
as its Sabellian implications ; and that the party as a whole 
commonly repudiated in its councils the Arian doctrine of the 
creaturely rank of the Son. In fact, the position of the Semi- 
Arian party was not so much a testimony against faith in the 
possession by the Son of an essentially divine rank and of 
divine predicates, as a testimony in favor of conjoining a dis- 
tinct recognition of the subordination of the Son with the idea 
of His divinity. As for the Arian party, the seeming promi- 
nence which it attained, especially in the reign of Valens, was 
due largely to imperial force and patronage; and the speedy 
collapse of the party, after the withdrawal of this artificial 


1 Sozomen, Hist. Eccl, i. 20. 


194 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


basis, illustrates clearly the alien character of its creed. In 
general, if we eliminate the effect of extraneous causes, we 
must conclude that the broad central current of the theology 
of the fourth century was in the direction of acknowledging in 
Christ an essentially divine rank and nature. Notwithstand- 
ing the great commotion which it raised, Arianism was nothing 
more than a dogmatic eccentricity. 

In the third century the theoretical construction of some of 
the fathers may not have been fully on a level with the Nicene 
creed ; but all through the century the mind of the Church in 
general was evidently pervaded with the conviction that truly 
divine predicates belong to Christ. There is no evidence that 
the humanitarian theory represented by Paul of Samosata and 
some less conspicuous predecessors, according to which Christ 
was only a man peculiarly replenished with the grace and 
power of the Holy Spirit, had any large following. It was a 
local and limited form of monarchian or antitrinitarian teaching. 
Moreover, the fact that a contrasted form of monarchianism, 
known as the Sabellian — which acknowledged only a Trinity of 
manifestations, and conceived of Christ as the unipersonal God 
incarnate — appeared at the same time, suggests that both 
got their incentive, not from the antecedent standpoint of the 
Church, but from a speculative ambition to evade the diffi- 
culties of a trinitarian hypothesis. In any event, as these 
dogmatic eccentricities were contrary to one another, the 
former making the centre of personality in Christ purely 
human, and the latter regarding it as the sole Divine Being, 
the one offsets the other so far as faith in Christ’s divinity is 
concerned. We are thus left free to regard the party which 
vanquished both the Samosatian and the Sabeillian schemes as 
representing, with but moderate abatement, the theological 
thinking of the third century.! 


1 Expressions from the writings of Tertullian and Origen have sometimes been 
thought to testify to a wide diffusion of the Sabellian (or Patripassian) way of 


os eee 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 195 


Examining the writings of leading representatives of this 
party we find that if they did not uniformly limit the subordi- 
nation of the Son as consistently as did the Nicene fathers, 
they were no less resolute in assigning to Him a truly divine 
nature and rank. This appears in the letter addressed by 
Hymenzus of Jerusalem and his five colleagues to Paul of 
Samosata. They affirmed that in conformity with the faith 
handed down and preserved in the Catholic Church to their 
day, they confessed Jesus Christ to be the only begotten Son 
of God, the image of the invisible God, “being before all 
worlds, not God according to foreknowledge, but in substance 
and in person (otetg xat tixoordae) God, Son of God.” ! 

Origen also witnessed to faith in the possession of truly 
divine predicates by the Son. While he conceived that Christ 
was below the Father as having a divinity derived from Him, 
he yet assumed that true divinity in its cardinal aspects was 
possessed by the Son. Among his descriptions we find such 
sentences as these: ‘‘ He whom we regard and believe to have 
been from the beginning God and the Son of God, is the very 
Logos, and the very Wisdom and the very Truth.”? “Our 
Saviour does not partake of righteousness, but being Himself 
righteousness, He is partaken of by the righteous.”? « All 
things belonging to God are in Him. Christ is the wisdom of 
God, He Himself is the power of God, He Himself the right- 


uncritical exaggerating expressions to which he was not wholly a stranger. In 
speaking of Praxeas as the first to teach the Patripassian doctrine at Rome, and as 
a pretender of yesterday, he has himself indicated that his broad statement about 
the simple-minded being stumbled over trinitarian terminology, is not to be taken 
as a proper measure of the attitude of contemporary Christians toward the trinitarian 
idea. As for Origen, he simply made the indefinite remark, that many were dis- 
posed to deny either the personal distinction or the divinity of the Son. (In Joan, 
Tom. II. 2.) This does not necessarily imply anything more than that there was 
an appreciable number who took one or the other alternative. Such a style of 
remark could have been employed even were it understood that the number of 
those entertaining the trinitarian faith was many times that of their opponents, 

1 Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, Vol. III. pp. 289-299. 

2 Cont, Cel. iii, a1. 8 Jbid, vi, 64. 


:96 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


eousness of God.”"!_ He is omnipresent, so that His coming 
to men involved no abandonment of the seat previously occu- 
pied.2_ He is also omniscient. The secrets of men’s hearts 
are open to Him. “Thou, O Son of God, who knowest all 
things, knowest what is in man.”’3 

In the same century Novatian very distinctly imputed to 
Christ a truly divine nature, as appears from such sentences 
as the following: ‘Scripture as much announces Christ as 
also God, as it announces God Himself as man. ... Because 
He is with us He is called Emmanuel, that is, God with us... . 
If, whereas, it is the property of none but God to know the 
secrets of the heart, Christ beholds the secrets of the heart ; 
and if, whereas, it belongs to none but God to remit sins, the 
same Christ remits sins, reasonably Christ is God.’’* Hippol- 
ytus taught that the “ Logos is God, being substance of God.” 
He also spoke of Christ, the incarnate Logos, as “the God 
above all,” as “God the Word who came down from heaven,”’ 
and as “the impassible Word of God,’ who needed to assume 
flesh in order to become subject to suffering.® Tertullian 
contended that Christ is at once truly God and truly man; 
that like the Father He is omnipotent and omnipresent ; that, 
as the stream is of the same substance as the fountain, He is 
of the same substance as the Father. “He proceeds forth 
from God, and in that procession He is generated, so that He 
is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance 
with God.” ® The testimony in fact is ample, and there is 
very little occasion for doubt as to the direction of the current 
in the third century.’ 


1 In Jer. Hom. viii. 2. 4 De Trin. xi-xiii. 
2 Cont. Cel. iv. 5, v. 12. 5 Philos. x. 29, 30; Adv. Noet. xv., xvii. 
8 In Joan. Tom. x. 30. 6 Adv. Prax. ii., xvii. 23, xxiii.; Apol. xxi. 


7 « By the end of the third century there can no longer have been any consider- 
able number of outlying communities where the doctrines of the preéxistence of 
Christ and the identity of this preéxistent One with the Divine Logos, were not 
recognized as the orthodox belief.” (Harnack, History of Dogma, Eng. edit., 
IT. 38.) 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 197 


As in the third century we note the two contrasted schemes, 
the Samosatian and the Sabellian, outside the central current, 
so also in the second century we have the two opposing modes 
of thought, Ebionism and Gnosticism. The former subordi- 
nated the new of Christianity to the old of Judaism ; the latter 
cumbered Christian tenets with materials drawn from Gentile 
philosophies and religions. As respects extent of influence, 
Ebionism was undoubtedly a very scanty factor in the latter 
part of the century ; nor can much scope be imputed to it in 
the earlier portion of the century, except by resort to an arbi- 
trary shifting of the New Testament writings from their prob- 
able date, and an equally arbitrary ignoring of the tenor of the 
post-apostolic literature. It is certainly no Ebionite Church 
which is mirrored in the mass of the New Testament writings, 
or in the literature of either half of the century. Gnosticism 
was a more important factor than Ebionism. But, since it was 
characterized in general by intemperate speculation and dog- 
matic eccentricity, its doctrine of Christ’s person can neither 
be regarded as representative of its own age nor as largely 
significant of the foregoing standpoint of the Church. As re- 
lated to the Ebionite christology, the Gnostic was not so dis- 
tinctly and uniformly an offset as the Sabellian theory was to 
the Samosatian. Still it was in general strongly contrasted 
therewith. If many of the Ebionites conceived of Christ as 
simply a man specially endowed by the Holy Ghost for an ex- 
traordinary mission, the more noted founders of Gnostic sects 
regarded Him as distinctly of a superhuman order, an emana- 
tion from the Supreme Being, a specialization in the first rank 
of the divine essence. 

Over against the small and wavering Ebionite sect and the 
shifting schools of the Gnostics, there was a dominant theo- 
jogical tendency in the second century which was manifested 
in a steadfast representation of Christ as the unique Son of 
God and the possessor of divine attributes. Ample witness 


of this tendency is found in Clement of Alexandria and in 
14 


198 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


Irenzus at the end of the second century, in Justin Martyr and 
his co-apologists in the middle portion of the century, and in the 
apostolic fathers who wrote in the first decades of the century. 
We may admit that some of these writers, like some of those 
in the third century, did not so carefully and consistently limit 
the subordination of the Son as did the Nicene fathers. But 
this signifies little else than the fact that the speculative elab- 
oration of a trinitarian theory had not yet wrought out the 
most suitable formulas ; it does not deny the warrant for con- 
cluding that the image of Christ which was in the minds and 
hearts of the writers of this era was that of a being possessing 
divine rank and attributes. 

Clement of Alexandria described Christ as being “both 
God and man,” “the living God who suffered and is adored,” 
“the Divine Word, He that is truly most manifest Deity, He 
that is made equal to the Lord of the universe,” “God in the 
form of man,” “The Commander-in-chief of the universe.” He 
said also of the Son, “He is wisdom, and knowledge, and 
truth.” “For Him to make any addition to His knowledge 
is absurd, since He is God.” Heis likewise above the limita- 
tions of space. ‘From His own point of view the Son of God 
is never displaced; not being divided, not severed, not pass- 
ing from place to place; being always everywhere and con- 
tained nowhere ; seeing all things, hearing all things, knowing 
all things.’’! In the writings of Irenzus we find an equiva- 
lent strain. Christ is characterized by him as the Founder, 
and Framer, and Maker of all things ; as the Saviour of all, and 
the Ruler of heaven and earth; as the measure of the im- 
measurable Father ; as having been always with the Father, 
and having glorified Him before all creation; as both God and 
man, since He forgave as God and suffered as man.? In the 
“rule of faith,’ which he represents as held by the Church 


1 Cohort. i. x.; Paed. i. 2, 6, 8; Strom. iv. 25, vii. 2. 
= Cont. Haer. i. 15:5, lle 9,. 3,; UL. 11. 2, 1Vs4- 25 1Vs 14. Ty AV, 200 aye eee 
v. 17. 3. 


ne 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 199 


dispersed throughout the world, Christ is spoken of as “ our 
Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King.” ! 

Justin Martyr, opposing Jewish scepticism, contended that 
the Old Testament exhibits Christ as “one, who is both Angel, 
and God, and Lord, and man,”’ and in repeated instances ap- 
plied to Him the Divine name. Athenagoras evidently placed 
the Son within the circle of the Godhead proper, for he de- 
scribed the Christians as those “Who speak of God the Father, 
and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare 
both their power in union and their distinction in order.” ® 
Theophilus of Antioch represented Christ as the Word who 
was always present with the Father, as begotten before all 
creatures, as the agent by whom all things were made, as the 
Divine Person who walked in Paradise, as God from God.! 

Since the writings of the apostolic fathers are mainly prac- 
tical treatises, we should expect in them references to Christ’s 
office and work rather than precise and formal definitions of 
His nature. Nevertheless, they are not without tributes to 
His divine dignity. They assume in common His preéxistence, 
and, in not a few instances, assign to Him a rank which greatly 
transcends the creaturely plane. The Epistle to Diognetus 
teaches that the invisible God did not send a servant or an 
angel to men, “but the very Creator and Fashioner of all 
things. ... As a king sends his son, who is also a king, so 
sent He Him; as God, os Oeov, He sent Him.’® The Epistle 
of Barnabas speaks of Christ as “ Lord of all the world,’’ and 
says there was good reason why He manifested Himself under 
the veil of the flesh; otherwise, men could not have endured 
to behold Him, their eyes being blinded even by the natural 
sun, which is the work of His hands.® In the Pastor of Her- 
mas the Son is described as older than all creatures, and a 
“fellow-councillor with the Father in the work of creation.” 


1Cont Haer. i. 10. 1. 
2 Dial. cum. Tryph. lix. Compare xxxiv., xlviii., Ix., xi, cxxvi., cxxvili. 
3 Legat. x. 4 Ad Autol. ii. 10, 22. 6 Chap. vii. 8 Chap. v. 


200 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


His name, it is also said, “is great and cannot be contained, 
and supports the whole world.” ! The Epistle of Polycarp 
represents Christ as joint source with the Father of every 
spiritual grace, and as enthroned over the universe. “To Him 
all things in heaven and earth are subject.’’? Ignatius, the 
martyr Bishop of Antioch, gives this exalted description of 
Christ: ‘“‘ There is one Physician who is possessed of both 
flesh and spirit ; both made and not made; God existing in 
flesh ; true life in death ; both of Mary and of God; first pas- 
sible and then impassible, —even Jesus Christ our Lord.” ® 
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles apparently refers to 
Christ as the God of David, and applies to Him words from 
the Old Testament which in their original relation were spoken 
of Jehovah.4 Clement of Rome says of Christ: “By Him 
are the eyes of our hearts opened. By Him our foolish and 
darkened understanding blossoms up anew towards His mar- 
vellous light. By Him the Lord has willed that we should 
taste of immortal knowledge, ‘who, being the brightness of 
His majesty, is by so much greater than the angels, as He 
hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than 
they.’’’® Clement uses, moreover, language having such 
trinitarian suggestions as the following: “For as God liveth, 
and the Lord Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit, who 
are the faith and the hope of the elect, so surely shall he. 
who with lowliness of mind hath performed the ordinances 
and commandments that are given by God, be enrolled and 
have a name among the number of them that are saved through 
Jesus Christ, through whom is the glory unto Him for ever 
and ever, Amen.’’® 

Thus the chain of testimony reaches back from the fourth 
century to the very verge of the apostolic era. Even if it is 
not uniformly indicative of precisely the same conception of 





1 Simil. ix. 12, 14, 2 Chapters ii., xii. 
8 Ad Eph. vii. Compare Ad Mag. viii., Ad Tral. vii., Ad Rom. iii. 
# x. 6, xvi. 7. § 1 Epist. Ad Cor. xxxvi. © 1 Epist. Ad Cor. lviii 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 201 


the relation of the Son to the Father as was championed by 
Athanasius and embodied in the Nicene creed, it must still 
be regarded as indicative of faith in the Son as possessed of 
divine rank and attributes.! 

We have now to look into the New Testament to determine 
how far the presumption that this line of testimony to Christ’s 
divinity was based on apostolic teaching finds a suitable cor- 
roboration. In scanning the New Testament books it will be 
proper to continue the regress order which has been pursued. 
The historical succession of these books, it is true, is not alto- 
gether ascertained, but we may group them with a fair degree 
of assurance. As the latest writings we have the fourth 
Gospel and the Epistles of John; next to these we may 
place the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews ; 
very nearly contemporary with these two, though based in 
part on earlier written memorials, we have the Synoptical 
Gospels, to which the Book of Acts may be added; the later 
Pauline Epistles, together with those of Peter and James, 
may take the next place; and finally we reach the earlier 
Epistles of Paul. 

By way of preface to this graduated review, it may be noted 
that the application to Christ of terms belonging to the human 
or creaturely scale does not necessarily imply a purely humani- 
tarian theory of His person. This is evident from the con- 
sideration that the very writers, who are most clear and 
emphatic in assigning to Christ a dignity immeasurably tran- 
scending the human scale, apply to Him in some connections 
the order of terms in question. They could not well avoid it 
altogether without hiding from their view that life in which 


1 Harnack was cited above on the belief dominant at the end of the third cen- 
tury. This is what he says for the primitive era of dogmatic development; “The 
earliest tradition not only spoke of Jesus as Ktpio¢, owrnp, and didaoxadoc, but as 
0 vids rod Geod, and this name was firmly adhered to in the Gentile Christian com- 
munities. It followed immediately from this that Jesus belongs to the sphere of 
God, and that, as is said in the earliest preaching known to us, one must think of 
Him o¢ epi Geov.”” (History of Dogma, I. 186.) 


202 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


the Son of God, though He was before all things, appeared as 
a man among men. 

The opening verses of John’s Gospel contain a positive 
assertion of Christ’s divinity. The declaration that the “Word 
became flesh” identifies the subject of the foregoing descrip- 
tion beyond all shadow of reasonable doubt with Jesus Christ. 
It is, therefore, declared of Him that in His higher nature 
He was in the beginning; that He was with God; that He 
was God; that all things were made by Him; that He had 
life in Himself, which life was the light of men; that being 
thus the maker of the world and the source of universal 
illumination, He came into.the world, and gave power to as 
many as received Him to become the sons of God. Certainly, 
if the author had meant to affirm preéxistence reaching back 
into eternity, divinity, and personality, he would have needed 
no more emphatic terms than those which he employed.} 
According to some interpreters, John has given in his First 
Epistle an equally clear assertion of Christ’s divinity in the 
following words: ‘‘ We know that the Son of God is come, 
and hath given us an understanding ; that we know Him that 
is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus 
Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” 2 Grammati- 
cally, it is admissible to connect the concluding statement with 
the Son, and thus to see in it an unequivocal assertion of His 
divinity. But it is also possible to connect the clause with the 
pronoun referring to the Father. The uncertainty of the refer- 
ence makes the passage much less available than the prologue 
to the Gospel. 

Scarcely secondary to the positive assertion of Christ’s 
divine rank is the evidence which is supplied by His conscious- 
ness of a peculiar relation to the Father. In that conscious- 


1 A speculation as to the source — Philonic, Hellenic, or Biblical — whence 
John derived the term Lagos, has little pertinence. His adaptation of it to express 
a Christian tenet is the important matter, and this is not ambiguous. 

2 1 John v. 20. 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 203 


ness, it is true, whether through the blending of the human 
with the divine, or as a necessary result of sonship even in a 
divine range, there was a certain recognition of subordination. 
The formal expression of this appears in the words, “The 
Father is greater than I.”! But, with this sense of subordina- 
tion, there is evinced, on the other hand, a lofty consciousness 
of complete copartnership with the Father. Even in declaring 
Himself less than the Father, Christ makes a comparison 
which could not be dictated by an ordinary human conscious- 
ness. How far He was above the plane of such a consciousness 
is revealed in sentences like these: “The Father loveth the 
Son, and hath given all things into His hand. ... My Father 
worketh even until now, and I work. ... Asthe Father raiseth 
the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son also quicken- 
eth whom He will. For neither doth the Father judge any 
man, but He hath given all judgment unto the Son: that all 
may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father... . I and 
the Father are one. ... He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father. ... All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine.” ? 

A third evidence is contained in the ascription to Christ of 
functions or attributes which reach intoadivine plane. In His 
own words, as reported by John, a hint is given of His tran- 
scendence of the limitations of space and time. “No man 
hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of 
heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven,”? « Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.’’* His 
ability to penetrate the secrets of men’s hearts, and to forecast 
the future, is affirmed in these positive terms: “ Jesus did not 
trust Himself unto them, for that He knew all men, and Ue- 


1 John xiv. 28. 

2 John iii. 35, v. 17, 21-23, x. 30, xiv. 9, xvi. 15. Compare I John ii. 23, iv. 
1b, v0 20. 

8 John iii. 13. 

* John viii. 58. For an answer to attempts to explain away the Johannine 
thought of the personal pre-existence of the Son, see George B, Stevens, Theology 
ct the New Testament, pp. 205-211. 


204 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


cause He needed not that any one should bear witness con- 
cerning man; for He Himself knew what was in man.” ! 
« Jesus knew, from the beginning, who they were that believed 
not, and who it was that should betray Him.” ? With equal 
emphasis is declared His mastery over the conditions of life and 
blessing. “Jesus said unto her: I am the resurrection and 
the life: he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he 
live.’ 3 «*Whatsoever ye shall ask, in My name, that will I 
do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall 
ask Me anything in My name, that will I do.” * A preémi- 
nent dignity is also indicated in the relation which the coming 
and the work of the Holy Spirit sustain to Christ. ‘ When 
the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the 
Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the 
Father, He shall bear witness of Me.’’® The words, “whom 
IT will send unto you,’ bespeak the divinity of Christ by all the 
strength of argument which revelation supplies for the divinity 
of the Holy Spirit. 

A fourth evidence in this group of Johannine writings is 
supplied by the very emphatic terms in which the spiritual 
dependence of men upon Christ is affirmed. Where the worth 
of divinity is predicated, congruity of thinking calls for the fact 
of divinity. But certainly the worth of divinity is assigned to 
the person of Christ in such sentences as these: “He that 
believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeyeth 
not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth 
on him. ... Iam the light of the world; he that followeth me 
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life... . 
If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed... . I 
am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the 
Father, but by me....I am the vine, ye are the branches. 
He that abideth in me, and I in Him, the same beareth 
much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing. If a man 


1 John ii. 24, 25. 3 John xi. 25. 5 John xv. 26. 
2 John vi. 64. # John xiv. 13, 14. 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 205 


abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. . . . 
The witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and 
this life is in His Son; he that hath the Son hath life; he 
that hath not the Son hath not life. ... Grace, mercy, and 
peace shall be with us from God the Father, and from Jesus 
Christ the Son of the Father in truth and love.” ! 

Once more it is to be noticed of these writings that they 
record no check upon a worshipful attitude toward Christ. 
The blind man, whose sight was restored, was not rebuked for 
worshipping Christ, nor was Thomas required to amend his 
words when he exclaimed, “ My Lord, and my God.” 2 

Passing to the second group of New Testament writings we 
find here also ample tribute to the divine rank of Christ. In 
the Apocalypse He is represented as saying to the awe-stricken 
seer: “I am the first and the last, and the living one,’ ® 
words parallel to those applied to the Most High a little be- 
fore. He is described as the one “that hath the Seven Spirits 
of God,” ° a representation equivalent to the declaration that 
the sources of spiritual life are with Him, or that the Holy 
Spirit acts as His messenger. He bears the name, “ King of 
kings and Lord of lords.”® Together with the Father He is 
the temple and the light of heaven ;‘ and He is also joint 
object with Him of the lofty doxology which is rendered by 
the universe of creatures.” § 

The opening chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews vies 
with the prologue to John’s Gospel in its ascriptions to the 
Son. He is portrayed as the heir of all things; the one 
through whom the worlds were made; the effulgence of God’s 
glory and the very image of His substance; the upholder of 
all things by the word of His power; an object of worship 
to all the angels; the bearer of the divine name.’ In fine, in 


1 John iii. 36, viii. 12, 36, xiv. 6, xv. 5,6; 1 John v. 11, 12; 2 John 3. 

9 John ix. 38, xx. 28. © Rev. iii. 1. 8 Rev. v. I1-14, vii. 9, 10. 

8 Rev. i. 17. 6 Rev. xvii. 14, xix. 16. * See also Heb. xii. 2, xiii. 8. 
4 Rey. i. 8. 7 Rev. xxi. 22, 23. 


206 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews the tribute to 
Christ is found to be on essentially the same plane as in the 
later Johannine writings. 

The Synoptical Gospels, being little else than simple narra- 
tives of the words and deeds of Christ, afford for the most part 
grounds for inference rather than formal statements on the 
nature of Christ. A historical aim also dominates the Acts. 
The grounds of inference, however, which these writings afford 
are not meagre. (1) As has already been illustrated at some 
length,! the union and reconciliation of contrasted attributes 
in Christ make for Him a rounded character and give Him an 
appearance of extraordinary personal completeness. This 
unique character is not indeed a direct proof of divinity proper, 
but it serves asa ground of such proof in that it bespeaks con- 
fidence in the sobriety of Christ’s own conceptions of His 
rank and significance. (2) The titles which Christ bears 
in these writings are indicative of a divine rank. The 
voice from heaven pronounces Him the well-beloved Son, and 
He gives to Himself the title of Son. It is true that He in- 
structs His disciples also to look up to God as the Father 
in heaven; but never in respect of sonship does He place 
Himself, on a parity with men. The reference is always to 
the Father or my Father, and never to our Father when His 
own relation is mentioned. Of similar significance is the use 
of the term Lord. That it was applicable to Christ, in a sense 
higher than that which designates any interrelation of men, 
was intimated by Christ when He reminded the Jews that the 
Messiah was David’s Lord as well as his son. It is to be 
noticed also that the dying Stephen addressed Jesus as Lord 
in a relation where we should expect an appeal to no other 
than a Divine Being. In another passage of the Acts it is 
declared of Christ that He is Lord of all; and in a still further 
instance, if the accepted text may be followed, the connection 


1 Part I. Chap. III. Sect. V. 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 207 


of the clauses imports that the divine name is assigned to Him.! 
(3) The mien of authority assumed by Christ is harmonious 
with the supposition of his divine dignity. Whether address- 
ing men or commanding the forces of nature, He proceeded as 
one possessed of conscious mastery.” (4) In many instances a 
positive assertion is recorded of a lordship which transcends 
the human measure. In the eschatology, generally, of the 
Synoptical Gospels Christ is portrayed as enthroned in majesty 
over the world to come, and as determining the lot of men ac- 
cording to their relation to Himself.* (5) Very high powers 
are ascribed to Christ as one who is to baptize with the Holy 
Spirit, and to work in the disciples with supernatural effi- 
ciency.* (6) Christ asserts for Himself a wholly exceptional 
position, an essentially divine relation, in this declaration: “All 
things have been delivered unto me of my Father ; and no one 
knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any know 
the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 
willeth to reveal Him.”*® (7) A divine function is imputed to 
Christ in that He is said to know the thoughts of men. To 
be sure it is not assertea formally that He had this knowledge 
by direct insight; but a comparison of the language of the 
Synoptists with the more explicit statement of John makes it 
probable that such was their thought. (8) Christ is repre- 
sented as claiming the divine prerogative to forgive sins, and 
as defending the claim in face of the charge of usurpation 
and blasphemy.’ (9) Christ promises to be present with His 


1See Matt. i. 23, iii. 17, vii. 21, 22, xiv. 33, xxii. 42-45, xxiii. 10, xxvi. 63, 64; 
Mark ix. 7, xiv. 61, 62; Luke i. 32, ii. 11, ix. 35, xx. 41-44, xxil. 70; Acts iil. 
Ia, 15, Vil. 50, ix. II, -17, x. 36, Xx. 28, xxii. 14. 

2 Matt. vii. 29; Mark i. 22, 27, ii. 11, 12; Luke iv. 32, vi. 10, viii. 24, 25. 

5 Matt. x. 32, 33, xvi. 27, xxv. 31-46, xxvi. 63, 64, xxviii. 18; Mark li, 28; 
Luke vi 5, xxi. 27, xxii. 69. 

4 Matt. iii. rr; Mark i, 8: Luke xxi, 15, xxiv. 49. 

5 Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. 22. 

6 Matt. ix. 4, xii. 25; Luke ix. 47. 

7 Matt. ix. 2-6; Mark ii. 5-11; Luke v. 20-24. 


208 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


disciples in terms indicative of a consciousness that it belonged 
to Him to transcend the circle of finite knowledge and spatial 
limitations! (10) He receives worship, and rates Himself 
above temple, Sabbath, men, and angels.’ 

As the list of specifications shows, much the same frame- 
work of conceptions runs through the Synoptical Gospels as 
is found in that of John, the principal difference being that 
the latter connects more of the element of interpretation, or 
of explicit theological statement, with its report of Christ’s 
words and deeds. 

In the later Pauline Epistles there are several lines of 
reference to Christ which are indicative of His divine rank. 
(1.) A universal lordship is ascribed to Him. Paul’s favorite 
name for his Master is “our Lord Jesus Christ.’’ In his 
thought, the divine kingdom and the kingdom of the Son are 
apparently identical terms.? He also describes the Son as 
enthroned far above all creatures, as being to all a proper ob- 
ject of worship, and as the judge of the living and the dead.* 
(2.) Christ 1s represented as the supreme object of pursuit. 
Hope and desire are made to centre in Him in a measure 
which argues that he who reaches Christ reaches the divine.® 
(3.) A divine function is ascribed to Christ in the dispensation 
of grace. Either grace is referred to Him unqualifiedly, or 
He is coordinated with the Father as its source.® (4.) Christ 
is designated the mystery of God, in whom are all the treasures 
of wisdom and knowledge hidden.’ (5.) He is described as 
the creator, upholder, and fashioner of all things. “In Him 


1 Matt. xviii. 20, xxviii. 20. 

2 Matt. xiv. 33; Luke xxiv. 52; Matt. xii. 6, 8, xxiv. 36. 

§ Ephav, ,§5i-Gob kei 13; tl 245 

* Eph. i. 21, 22; Phil. ii. 10, 11; Col. ii. 10; 2 Tim. iv. 1. Compare James ii. 1; 
1 Peter ili. 22. 

5 Phil. i. 21-23, iii. 8,9; Col. i. 27, iii. 4. 

6 Eph. vi. 23; Phil. i. 2, iv. 233: Col. iii. 43 1 Tim, i. 1, 2; 2 Tim. i. 23) Titus 
i. 4; Philemon 3, 25. 

ECO hy 2.4: 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 209 


were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, 
things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or domin- 
ions or principalities or powers ; all things have been created 
through Him, and unto Him; and He is before all things, 
and in Him all things consist.’’! This is obviously a descrip- 
tion which reaches beyond the creaturely rank. In the same 
connection, it is true, Christ is spoken of as the first-born of 
the creation. But, taken with the context, this epithet must 
be regarded as rather designed to express Christ’s rightful 
headship and preéminence over creation than to specify His 
inclusion under the category of created things. In other 
words, it specifies not essence but relation—a relation of 
rightful, native lordship. (6.) The divine form is spoken of 
as appropriate to Christ; all the fullness of the Godhead is 
said to dwell in Him ; and, according to an accepted reading, 
the divine name is applied to Him? 

The earlier Epistles of Paul — including Romans, First and 
Second Corinthians, Galatians, and the two Epistles to the 
Thessalonians — afford a line of evidence very nearly equiva- 
lent to that contained in the later group. Christ is portrayed 
in these writings, which were written in the third decade from 
His death, as the “ Lord of glory,” “through whom are all 
things.” ® He is represented as the judge of the race;* as 
the supreme object of aspiration ;° and as the one foundation 
of the spiritual edifice.© His heavenly preéxistent being is 
taken for granted.’ Repeatedly he is spoken of as the source 
of grace or as joint source with the Father... The indwelling 
of Christ is described in terms which import that it means 
nothing less than the habitation and operation of the divine in 





1 Col. i. 16, 17, Phil. iii. 20, 21. 2 Phil. ii. 6; Col. ii. 9; Titus ii. 13. 
8 1 Cor. ii. 8, viii. 6. Compare 1 Cor. i. 8, iv. 4; 2 Cor. iv. 5; Rom. xv. 30. 
# 2 Cor. v. 10. 5 2 Thess. ii. 14. 8 y Cor. iii. 11. 


7 Rom. i. 3, ix. §; 2Cor. viii.g; Gal. iv. 4. 
SP Aon 3. °3,5245°%, Ay zVi gs 2 Cor, v, 19, xii 14 3 Gal. 1253" 4,0u.' 20, vi. 
18; 1 Thess. v.28; 2 Thess, i. 2; ii, 16, 17, iii, 18; Rom, i. 7, xv. 29, xvi. 20, 


210 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


man! Finally, it is only the contrast of the expression with 
Paul’s ordinary terminology which stands in the way of assum- 
ing that in one instance he styles Christ “God over all, 
blessed forever.’’? The order of the clauses is rather favor- 
able, than otherwise, to connecting the high ascription with 
Christ. 

The intrinsic relation which, in the total representation of 
Paul, is predicated of Christ to the world and the whole king- 
dom of spirits, necessitates the conclusion that 1 Cor. xv. 
24~—28 describes the cessation of a prominent aspect of official 
eminence, rather than of lordship itself. These verses are to 
be taken as meaning that, when the work of reconciliation has 
been fully accomplished, dependence upon Christ in His me- 
diatorial character will recede in favor of a sense of imme- 
diate relation with the Father. The Son, zz this aspect, must 
fall into a secondary or subject position, as compared with that 
held in the sight of the subjects of redemption while the work 
of mediation was in progress. At any rate, if this is not the 
whole of Paul’s meaning, in this connection, he must be re- 
garded as having made here a statement which is out of har- 
mony with other representations of his respecting Christ’s 
standing. In declaring that all things were created through 
Him, and unto Him, and consist in Him,’ and in making 
Christ the object of supreme desire,* he ascribes to Him a 
divine eminence or lordship which cannot rationally be sup- 
posed subject to any real abatement. 

Such is the field of historic evidence on the subject of 
Christ’s divinity. It is seen that, while there may have been 
some advance as respects formal construction, there was no 
revolution in the Church as respects the fundamental view of 
Christ’s person. Substantially the same framework of con- 
ceptions is found in each of the early centuries, and in every 


1 Gal. iv. 6; Rom. viii. 9, 10, 15, 16. See also Gal. ii. 20; 2 Cor. xii. 9; 
Rom. xv. 18, 19, 
2 Rom. ix. 5. # Col. in 16,87, 4 Phil. iii. 8, 9; Col. iii. 3, 4. 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS, 211 


stadium of the apostolic literature. From one end of the line 
to the other, Christ is set forth as above the human and 
creaturely plane, in rank, in functions, and in attributes. 

A. brief reference to the Old Testament might properly 
have been included in the review of the historical evidence. 
Many of the fathers saw in the Angel of Jehovah, who is 
made the bearer of the divine name in several instances,! a 
reference to the Son of God. Paul, in 1 Cor, x. 4, affords an 
indirect support to their view by the manner in which he con- 
nects Christ with the divine ministry to Israel under the 
earlier dispensation. But, whatever may be made out of the 








1 Gen. xvi. 10, 13, xxii. 11, 12, xxxi. 11, 13, xxxii, 30; Hosea xii. 3~5 ; Ex. iti. 
2-15; Mal. iii. 1. 

2 That the Angel of Jehovah was in a measure suited to typify the New Testa- 
ment mediator need not be disputed. It is not at all clear, however, that Old 
Testament thought, even ifit made the Angel more than a creaturely form or agent, 
regarded him as personally distinct from Jehovah. As examples of the more recent 
exegesis, we add the following: ‘* As God is thought to appear in varied forms, for 
example, in the phenomena of the thunderstorm, in the pillar of cloud and of fire, 
in a glorious effulgence over the tabernacle and the temple, so can He also make 
men acquainted with His being, and aware of His presence, in the supernatural 
personal being called angel, without thereby identifying Himself with this personal 
being. Rather the highest truth which shimmers through this form of representa- 
tion is that God, though in Himself invisible, still can become mediately visible 
and apprehensible to men, in individual manifestations, forms, beings; and among 
these forms and beings an angel is one of the most acceptable and eligible.” (Dill- 
mann, Handbuch der altestamentlichen Theologie, p. 327.) ‘The Angel of Je- 
hovah is not to be interpreted as an uncreated person in angelic form, a person 
like to God in essence, though personally distinguished from Him (the Logos) ; 
nor, according to a more common conception, as an angelic messenger sent forth 
by God. In essence he belongs undoubtedly to the class of angels, and accordingly 
distinguishes himself not seidom from Jehovah, and, indeed, in such a way that 
the disparity between him as a creature and Jehovah, to whom alone divine honor 
is awarded, is distinctly brought to light. On the other side, however, he is so far 
the organ of the personal self-revelation of Jehovah, that in general his own angel- 
personality retreats behind the person of Jehovah, and his appearance is construed 
only as a visible’ representation of Jehovah Himself.” (Riehm, Alttestamentliche 
Theologie, p. 160.) “ While the various sides of the divine will find expression 
through angels, the Angel of God is he in whom God makes known to man, for 
special ends, His whole being and will. The form of manifestation here also is a 
personal being, who is not God. But what this being is, is of absolutely no con- 


212 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


peculiar references to the Angel of Jehovah, such a passage 
as Isa. ix. 6, 7 certainly reads like a presentiment of the com- 
ing of one who, in dignity and rank, should greatly transcend 
human measures. In general, however, the New Testament 
is so much more specific than the Old on the subject of 
Christ’s person, that there is very slight occasion, in pursuance 
of a purely dogmatic aim, to go back of its record. 


II. — HistroricaAL DATA FOR THE DIVINITY AND PERSON- 
ALITY OF-sTHE Hoty SPIRIT. 


The patristic testimony to faith in the divinity and person- 
ality of the Holy Spirit was undoubtedly less in volume than 
that recorded in behalf of the divinity of the Son. It must 
be conceded, also, that in individual instances a lower view was 
taken of the Spirit than of the Son. The significance, how- 
ever, of the first of these points is much qualified by the fact, 
that the doctrine of the Spirit was in the logical order of de- 
velopment secondary to that of the Son, and so, naturally, was 
less a subject of direct treatment until the latter had been 
thoroughly canvassed. As to the second point, the instances 
of an emphatic subordination of the Spirit are not so numer- 
ous as to imply that the trend of Catholic teaching was not 
decidedly in favor of His divine rank and essence. 

The personality of the Spirit was almost universally ac- 
knowledged, or assumed, in the early centuries. It is true 
that Gregory Nazianzen, in the fourth century, spoke of some 
who regarded the Spirit as a mere activity or energy. But 
manifestly they had no weight. All the prominent parties of 


sequence. Whether he has a special personal consciousness and will, or whether 
he has a definite rank or a special name, are matters of no importance to those 
who receive the revelation. For them he is merely a form of divine revelation; 
his words are God’s words; to look on him is to look on God.” (Schultz, Old 
Testament Theology, II. 223.) 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 213 


the era, Nicene, Semi-Arian, and Arian, accepted in common 
the personality of the Holy Spirit. The representative writers 
of the ante-Nicene period likewise used language which im- 
plies that they conceived of the Holy Spirit as personal.! 

The acknowledgment of the divinity of the Holy Spirit was 
nearly parallel with that of His personality, Eusebius of 
Czesarea may have taught a subordination of the Spirit that 
ill agrees with the proper notion of divinity, and one or two 
sentences of Origen may make questionable his consistency in 
placing the Holy Spirit within the circle of the Godhead. But 
it is certain that the foremost champions of the Nicene doctrine 
of the Son taught also the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit 
with the Father.?- The nature of the Spirit is treated in the 
so-called creed of Constantinople less definitely than in their 
writings ; but it requires no strained interpretation to discover 
in the following language an ascription of divinity: ‘ We be- 
lieve in the Holy Ghost who is Lord and Giver of Life, who 
proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the 
Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the 
prophets.” 

The view which found expression in these terms was no in- 
novation. The “rule of faith” testifies that in the conscious- 
ness of the ante-Nicene Church a divine rank was accorded 
to the Holy Spirit. In Origen’s version of the rule we read : 
«The apostles related that the Holy Spirit was associated in 
honor and dignity with the Father and the Son.”® An exal- 
tation of the Spirit to the same plane of divine honor appears 


1 Origen, In Ioan. Tom. ii. 6; Novatian, De Trin. xvi., xxix.; Hippolytus, Adv., 
Noet. viii., xii.; Tertullian, Adv. Prax. i., viii., ix., xii.; Clement of Alexandria, 
Paed. i. 6, Strom. v. 14; Irenzeus, Cont. Haer. iv. 20; Athenagoras, Legat. x.; 
Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. vi., xiii; Ignatius, Ad. Magnes. xiii.; Clement of Rome, 
First Epist. ad Cor. viii. 

2 Athanasius, Epistolae ad Serapion; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. vi. 6, viii. 5, 
xvi. 3, 4, 22; Basil, Adv. Eunom. iii. 1; Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. xxxi. 9; 
Gregory of Nyssa, De Communibus Nominibus; Ambrose, De Spir. Sanct. i. 2, 
5> 7» 12, iii. 16. 8 De Prin. Praef. 

15 


214 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


in the references of leading writers. ‘A man,” says Hippol- 
ytus, “even though he will it not, is compelled to acknowl- 
edge God the Father Almighty, and Christ Jesus, the Son of 
God, who being God became man, to whom also the Father 
made all things subject, Himself excepted, and the Holy Spirit 
[excepted]... . We see the Word incarnate, and we know the 
Father by Him, and we believe in the Son, and we worship 
the Holy Spirit.”! Tertullian, contending that Father, Son, 
and Spirit are distinct and inseparable, writes: “Everything 
which proceeds from something else must needs be second to 
that from which it proceeds, without being on that account 
separated. Where, however, there is a second, there must be 
two; and where there is a third there must be three. Now 
the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son, just as the 
fruit of the tree is third from the root... . Although I must 
everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and in- 
separable [Persons], yet I am bound to acknowledge from the 
necessity of the case, that He who issues a command is differ- 
ent from Him who executes it.’’* Irenzeus says: “ With Him 
[God the Father] were always present the Word and Wisdom, 
the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and 
spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, 
saying, ‘Let us make man after our image and likeness.’”’® 
The words of Clement of Rome, ‘as God liveth, and the Lord 
Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit, who are the faith and 
hope of the elect,” * indicate that a divine rank was assigned 
to the Spirit. 

The trend of early patristic teaching cannot, therefore, be 
regarded as doubtful. But were that trend less clearly defined 
than it is, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit would not lack the 
needful data, at least as regards the main points. The New 
Testament in an abundant list of passages plainly refers to 
the Holy Spirit works of intelligence, and such works of in- 





1 Adv. Noet. viii., xii. 3 Cont. Haer. iv. 20. 
2 4y\'. Prax. viii, xi. 4 First Epist. ad Cor. lvii. 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 215 


telligence as manifestly belong to a divine rather than to a 
creaturely range! In many of these passages, it is true, the 
personal agent who is back of the works is not so fully dis- 
tinguished but that “the Holy Spirit” might be regarded as 
standing for God acting in a special way, or within a special 
sphere; in other words, as denoting God in a particular order 
of manifestations, rather than a distinct person in the Godhead. 
But there are a number of passages which cannot be construed 
in the former sense with any appearance of propriety. Not 
only in John’s discourse about the Comforter, but also in the 
baptismal formula,’ and in various sentences of the Epistles,‘ 
the Spirit is codrdinated with the Father and the Son in a 
manner which implies distinct personality. 

The verbal affiliation of 2 Cor. iii. 17 with the view that 
the Spirit may be identified with Christ in His pneumatic 
nature cannot properly be quoted against a trinitarian con- 
ception. The expression 64 kvp.os 76 rvedpd éoriy is to be under- 
stood with reference to the contrast to Moses which the 
apostle is portraying. As Moses can be called the ypduuea in 
so far as that which was mediated by him is a writing now 
inclosed in the letter — Moses, says the apostle, is read — so 
is the Lord the Spirit in so far as He is the source of the con- 
stant life-movement which is the distinctive character of the 
Church.° 

The fact that the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as a 
gift is no insuperable bar to the supposition of personality. 
The Son is also spoken of as a gift. The term “outpouring” 
in relation to the Spirit is parallel to that of “sending’”’ in re- 
lation to the Son. Nothing but the crassest literalism will 

1 Matt. x. 20; Mark xiii. 11; Luke xii. 11, 12; John xiv. 16, 17, 26, xvi. 7-13; 
Acts i. 16, ii. 4, v. 32. x. 19, xiii. 2, xvi. 6, xx. 23; Rom. vill, 14-16, 26, 27; 1 Cor. 
ii. 10, 11, xii, 3-11, 1 John v. 7, 8. 

2 John xiv. 16, 17, 26, xvi. 7-13. 

8 Matt. xxviii. 19. 


4 Eph. ii. 18, 22, iv. 4-6; 1 Cor. xii. q—6; 2 Cor. xiii. 14; 1 Pet. i. 2. 
5 Frank, System der Christlichen Wahrheit, I. 211. 


216 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION, 


see in either anything more than a description of a vocation 
fulfilled in accordance with the will of the Father. 

The ascription to the Holy Spirit of works of divine intelli- 
gence and the grievousness of the sin against Him! give 
adequate proof of His divinity. The evidence from Christian 
consciousness is also unequivocal. <A clear perception of what 
is involved in the sanctification of a sinful soul inevitably begets 
the conviction that no work can be more divine than this, 
and that, consequently, its agent cannot be less than divine. 
Indeed, no question can rationally be made about the divinity 
of the Holy Spirit. His distinct personality can be the only 
subject of inquiry either on the plane of New Testament teach- 
ing or on that of a truly Christian consciousness. 

The Old Testament ascribes divine functions and attributes 
to the Spirit ;* but, as in general it gives only hints in the 
direction of a trinitarian theory, the evidence which it affords 
for the distinct personality of the Spirit falls quite below that 
contained in the New Testament. 


IlI. —- ExTENT TO WHICH THE HIsTORICAL DATA AFFORD 
GROUND FOR A DEFINITE TRINITARIAN THEORY. 


New Testament language in a number of instances is form- 
ally trinitarian, mention being made in the same connection 
of Father, Son, and Spirit, as if distinct, and yet most inti- 
mately related. Still, the evidence which most compels to a 
trinitarian theory is the whole line of reference to Christ in 
the New Testament, together with the trend of early patristic 
teaching, and the whole line of reference to the Holy Spirit. 


1 Matt. xii. 31, 32; Mark iii. 28, 29; Luke xii. 10; Acts v. 3,9; Eph. iv. 30. 

2 Job xxxiii. 4; Ps. civ. 30, cxxxix. 7; Ezek. xxxvi. 27, xxxvii. 143: Isa. xi. 2, 
xlyviti. 16, bil, 1037 Gen. vis) 1s. is 

8 John xiv. 16, 17, 26, xvi. 7-133 1 Cor. xii. 4-6; 2 Cor, xiii. 14; Eph. ii. 18, 
22, iv. 4-6; 1 Pet.i. 2. 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 217 


The pervasive representation, entering into the very warp and 
woof of the New Testament, respecting the functions, attri- 
butes, and works of the Son and the Spirit, was and is and 
always will be the substantial ground of trinitarianism. As 
Dorner has remarked, “The Christian idea of God, histori- 
cally regarded, is decidedly the trinitarian.”.! Contemporary 
philosophy may have provided the early fathers in some 
measure with instrumentalities for their dogmatic construc- 
tion ; but the historical data which were before them consti- 
tuted the main ground for their trinitarian theory, and apart 
from Platonism, or other philosophy, the same ground is likely 
to be effective in any age that is characterized at once by faith 
in revelation and by a constructive bent. Even modern Uni- 
tarianism pays tribute to the perennial force of this historic 
incentive when it declares, by the mouth of an eminent repre- 
sentative, that the doctrine of Father, Son, and Spirit is the 
distinguishing feature of Christianity, “indispensable to any 
right and worthy conception of Deity”’:? or when it affirms 
through another of its writers, ‘“The gospel-revelation does 
distribute the whole working force and efficiency of the 
gospel-truth and power under the three divine methods or 
agencies, assigned respectively to the Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit. That Trinity in unity is in the gospel. It is the 
gospel.” 8 

In construing the historical data no further reference is 
needed to trinitarianism of the Arian type, since that is re- 
futed by all the evidence which has been given for the proper 
divinity of the Son and the Spirit. A reference to the Sabel- 
lian hypothesis is more in place. It will not require, however, 
any extended consideration. Its contention that Father, Son, 
and Spirit denote successive forms of manifestation on the 
part of the one Divine Person contradicts the New Testament 


1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 29. 
2 F. H. Hedge, Unitarian Affirmations. 
8 Geo. E. Ellis, Discourse on the Christian Trinity. 


218 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


thought of fellowship between Father and Son, as also the 
representation of associated action on the part of Father, Son, 
and Spirit. For like reasons any scheme whatever of simple 
modalism can obtain no secure foothold. If personal distinc- 
tions are to be abolished, what meaning can be attached to 
the declaration, that the Word which became incarnate was in 
the beginning with God? On the same ground what intel- 
ligible sense can be found for the prayer of the incarnated 
Son to be glorified with the glory which He had with the 
Father before the world was? What could Paul have meant 
when he spoke of the vast renunciation of the One who being 
in the form of God counted it not a prize to be on an equality 
with God? What again did the apostle mean when he spoke 
of his Lord as the Son of God’s love, the firstborn of the crea- 
tion, through whom all things were made? What imports 
the whole strain on the position and relation of the Son re- 
corded in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews? 
What mean baptismal formula, salutation, benediction, and 
promise, in which Son and Spirit are co-ordinated with the 
Father? Only a species of exegetical desperation can under- 
take to harmonize these representations with any scheme of 
simple modalism. 

Assuming that the trinitarian conception, in the sense of 
real, permanent, and personal distinctions in the Godhead, is 
imbedded in revelation, we have still several questions of fact 
to consider. The main inquiries concern these points: (1) 
whether the term Son is expressive of pre-temporal and nec- 
essary relations between the Divine Persons: (2) whether in 
the Scriptures procession is affirmed of the Spirit in anything 
more than an economic sense; (3) the extent of the subordi- 
nation which is legitimately predicated of the Son and the 
Spirit. 

As the Bible is not a book of metaphysics, its language in 
general belongs rather to the sphere of manifestation than to 
that of essential being. This fact affords a plausible ground 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 219 


for those who contend that the term Son gives no real infor- 
mation on the essential interrelations of the Divine Persons. 
They are able to say that the Logos appeared in a human 
nature begotten according to the will of God, a nature pene- 
trated with a filial sense, and serving to present to men the 
most perfect model in respect of sonship ; that in consequence 
of this preéminent illustration of sonship the name of Son, 
even if in strictness it is appropriate only to the human aspect 
of the Redeemer, is very naturally used in referring to His 
person generally. As He is properly termed “Christ ’’ in con- 
sideration of the preéminence of the vocation —the spiritual 
kingship——to which He was appointed, so He is properly 
termed “Son” in consideration of His unique sense and illus- 
tration of sonship. 

It cannot be denied that much of the New Testament refer- 
ence to the Son may be very well explained in this way. The 
human consciousness of Christ was so large a factor in His 
speech that many of His own declarations respecting His filial 
relation to God may be thus accounted for, that is, as being 
determined by the perfect sense of sonship which belonged to 
His human consciousness. 

Nevertheless, New Testament data as a whole must be re- 
garded as countenancing the conclusion that the name of Son, 
from the standpoint of revelation, is indicative of the pre- 
incarnate relation of Christ, or His relation on the divine side. 
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews intimates that he 
thus conceived the subject in representing that the Son by 
whom God made the worlds is “the effulgence of His glory 
and the very image of His substance.” Paul shows that he 
had the same view in mind by the almost equivalent terms 
in which he describes the Son in the Epistle to the Colos- 
sians.1 A token of the same conception is found in the term 
“only-begotten”’ which John in several instances applies to 


1Col. i. 12-17. See also Gal. iv. 4. 


220 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


Christ.! Meyer expresses the natural implication of the term 
when he says: “povoyevys designates the Logos as the ovly 
Son, besides whom the Father has none, who did not like the 
réxva, Beod (John i. 12, 13) become such by moral generation, 
nor by adoption, but by the intrinsic relation inhering in the 
divine essence, whereby He was zx the beginning with God, 
being Himself divine in nature and person.” ? 

If by the “procession” of the Spirit is understood the 
eternal and necessary mode of His subsistence in the Godhead, 
it must be said that the Scriptures make no direct statement 
on the subject. It is true that in the Gospel of John the 
Spirit is described as proceeding from the Father,®? and in 
First Corinthians‘ as being from God, é« rod 6eod. But in 
either case it is forcing the language out of its more obvious 
intent to take it metaphysically, rather than economically, or to 
suppose that it denotes anything else than the relation of the 
Spirit’s working to the will or agency of the Father. In the 
sense of the evangelist the statement that the Spirit proceeds 
from the Father is simply another way of saying that it belongs 
to the prerogative and standing purpose of the Father to give 
or to pour out the Spirit.° Accordingly, the sole scriptural 


1 John i. 14, 18, iii. 16, 18; 1 John iv. 9. 3 John xv. 26. 

2 Comment on John i, 14. 4) 1VCOK, Melba 

5 A staunch Trinitarian finds in the form of statement used an argument for this 
interpretation. The employment of the preposition apa rather than éx, says 
Westcott, is indicative of the idea of proceeding on a mission as distinguished from 
that of derivation from a source. The same preposition is habitually used in con- 
nection with the coming forth of the Son to fulfill His mission. ‘The use of mapa 
in this place seems therefore to show decisively that the reference here is to the 
temporal mission of the Holy Spirit, and not to the eternal procession. In accor- 
dance with this usage the phrase in the creeds is uniformly ‘ which proceedeth out 
of’ (16 mvedpa 76 Gylov 16 éx Tod mTaTpb¢ ExTOpevomevov); and it is most worthy of 
notice that the fathers who apply this passage to the eternal procession instinctively 
substitute é« for mapa.” (The Gospel according to St. John, pp. 224-225.) It 
may properly be added, that without a special context even the use of é«, to indi- 
cate the relation of the Spirit, would be no adequate proof of a design to teach an 
eternal metaphysical derivation, as opposed to a being sent forth into a sphere of 
action. 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 221 


ground for the Catholic doctrine of procession is found in the 
general representation of the subordination of the Spirit to 
the Father andthe Son. A certain demand of congruity is met 
by supposing that the economic subordination reflects a species 
of dependence in the mode of personal subsistence. Since the 
economic dependence is predicated of the Spirit in His relation 
to the Son, as well as to the Father,! there is much the same 
scriptural ground for believing in the procession from the Son, 
as in that from the Father.? 

The trinitarian process in the Godhead, whatever subordi- 
nation of Son and Spirit it may involve, does not compromise 
their eternity or the absolute necessity of their being. The 
process itself is to be conceived as eternal and necessary. 
While the Father is the first in the order of thought, and in 
some way is the ground of the personal subsistence of the 
Son and the Spirit, He cannot be without the Son and the 
Spirit any more than they can be without Him. The logical 
priority of one Person does not prevent the co-equality of the 
three as regards necessary subsistence. 

In ascribing to the Son and the Spirit eternity, necessary 
subsistence, and other attributes, or elements of rank, which 
distinctly transcend the creaturely plane, we exhaust the 
scriptural warrant as respects their nature and dignity. The 
Bible does not assert their strict equality with the Father. 
On the contrary, in its general representation, a certain pre- 
eminence is assigned to the Father ; indeed, this preéminence 
appears in the midst of some of the most emphatic tributes to 
the Son and the Spirit.2 In dealing with this fact, the theo- 
logian is likely to give the preference to one of two contrasted 


1 John xv. 26, xvi. 7. 

2 At a comparatively early date the Greek Church became the champion of the 
doctrine of a single procession, while the Latin Church advocated the theory of a 
procession from both Father and Son. The act of the latter in asserting its faith 
by adding the A/iogue clause to the Constantinopolitan creed was sharply censured 
by the Greek theologians. 

© Heb. i.; Col, i,s Phil, ii, 6-11; Eph. iv. 4-6; John v, 19-26, xiv, 26, xv, 26. 


222 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


points of view. On the one hand, abiding in the letter of the 
Scriptures, and allowing his thought to be dominated by the 
general picture which they give, he may place, like the early 
Arminians in Holland, considerable stress upon the subordina- 
tion of the Son and the Spirit. On the other hand, conceiv- 
ing that it best suits the demand of consistent thinking te 
present Divine Persons as nearly as possible on the same 
plane, he may conclude that the aspect of subordination which 
attaches to the Son and the Spirit in the Scriptures is largely 
due to the economic standpoint from which they are described, 
and may, therefore, be much reduced in a metaphysical view. 
Something may be said for either alternative. In our opinion 
a guarded allowance of subordination is better justified than a 
dogmatic assertion of equality. This position has the advan- 
tage of conformity to the apparent tenor of revelation which 
indubitably favors the conclusion that, while the Son and the 
Spirit are necessary to the Father, He is yet the prius of 
their personal subsistence in a sense other than that in which 
they condition His. Then, too, a certain subordination of 
Son and Spirit, so long as that degree of perfection is assigned 
to them which effectually excludes the possibility of dishar- 
mony, is congenial to the thought of the divine unity, as en- 
forcing an emphatic association of all in the Godhead with a 
single ground or source. 


1V.-— RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO THE TRINITARIAN 
THEORY. 


If not deducible on simple grounds of reason, the doctrine 
of the Trinity is at least not contradictory to rational think- 
ing. The pert objector who alleges against it the law of 
mathematics only needs to be told that no sane advocate of 
the doctrine ever dreams that God is one and three in the 
same respect. His contention is, rather, that an adequate con- 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 223 


ception of God must take account of trinitarian distinctions, 
though in language which is not formally scientific the name 
of God may be applied to any one of the Persons as a possessor 
of divine predicates. 

An objection, which may be urged with a better show of 
justice, charges the trinitarian view with being less conform- 
able than the opposing theory to the philosophical demand 
for unity at the basis of the universe. By way of response to 
this two things are to be said. In the first place, the trini- 
tarian view is counter to an abstract rather than to a real unity. 
The supposition of three Persons conjoined indissolubly in the 
necessary mode of their subsistence, and abiding eternally in 
a harmony as absolute as their intellectual and ethical per- 
fection, involves no such division or contrariety in the ground 
of the universe as needs to afflict the philosopher in his demand 
for unity. In the second place, philosophy is under obligation 
to postulate suitable conditions for the divine life as well as to 
search for unity. In meeting the former interest an advan- 
tage is afforded by the thought of personal distinctions in the 
Godhead. As love holds a foremost place in ethical values, it 
must be regarded as central to the life of God. But love de- 
mands fellowship, and perfect fellowship subsists only between 
persons who are essentially on the same plane. The infinite 
outflow of divine affection gets at once its suitable object and 
its suitable response only as there is a plurality of Divine 
Persons. Creatures in their imperfection and limitation make 
an inadequate object. In spite of them a unipersonal God 
must remain forever in comparative solitude.! 


1 The objection that love between the Persons of the Trinity, as being within the 
Godhead, is only a self-love, cannot be regarded as well taken. If the Son is in 
any true sense a substantial image of the Father, and relations of mutual contem- 
plation and of fellowship subsist between them —as Scripture and catholic teach- 
ing imply —then a love has place which is something else than mere self-love. 
With more plausibility an objection may be urged from the analogy of the divine 
omnipotence. As this does not go forth, it may be said, into an infinite effect, so 
the infinite love of God need not have a corresponding object. In an ethical 


224 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


A secondary advantage from this point of view is the safe- 
guard which it supplies against a pantheistic minifying of the 
distinction between God and the world. To suppose such a 
self-communication within the Godhead as satisfies infinite 
love puts us in a favorable position to think of creation as a 
free act of God rather than a necessary evolution from Him.! 
The former view is stanchly theistic; the latter is congenial 
to the pantheistic conception, though in fairness it must be 
said that the total theory of some of its representatives by no 
means deserves to be described as pantheism. 

This expresses, as we conceive, the most that philosophy 
has to offer in behalf of a plurality of Divine Persons. We 
say plurality rather than trinity ; for the interior demand of 
the divine life is not so clearly for a trinity as for a duality 
of Persons. It may indeed be urged that fellowship has the 
most perfect conditions where three are so conjoined that each 
knows that in the loving contemplation of another he has 
the unqualified sympathy of a third. Still tt cannot be claimed 
that a third is necessary to real fellowship; and all attempts 
which have been made to construe such necessity in relation 
to the Persons of the Trinity must be pronounced strained 
and artificial. The trinal as distinguished from the dual repre- 
sentation of divine personality, though not at all opposed by 
philosophy, cannot be regarded as very distinctly demanded 
by the same. Doubtless in the creaturely sphere there is 
much to suggest the conclusion that trinality is characteristic 
of the more complete being and the more perfect process. 
On the ground of analogy, therefore, a general motive is sup- 
plied for imputing trinality to God. It has to be confessed, 
however, that the analogies of the creaturely sphere do not 
definitely imply just that kind of trinality which is supposed 


being, however, the exercise of mere power is secondary, subordinate to ethical 
dictates. The demand for it, therefore, cannot be placed on a full parity with 
the demand for the exercise and satisfaction of love. 

1 Compare Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I. 33. 1. 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 225 


by the catholic theory of the Godhead. After all attempts 
to illustrate, we are left with the conclusion that the Divine 
Trinity is saz generis. Among illustrations that have been 
adduced, the one of greatest historical significance is that 
which Augustine regarded as supplied by memoria, intellectus, 
and voluntas — memory, understanding, and will, as they exist 
in man. Memory, as he conceived, is a condition of self- 
knowledge ; the divine mind in knowing itself in a manner 
objectifies itself, or begets an offspring corresponding to itself, 
that is, the Son; and the loving will which embraces this off- 
spring and unites Him to the begetter answers to the Holy 
Spirit. Augustine himself confessed that the analogy could 
be taken only in a qualified sense.! 

Going beyond the thought of Augustine, various writers 
have argued that a trinitarian process is an indispensable as- 
sumption in accounting for the divine self-consciousness. This 
can arise, it is contended, only by the existence of such positive 
relations as are constituted by the Father’s objectifying Him- 
self in the Son, and returning to Himself in the Spirit. More, 
however, can be said in favor of the possibility for this being 
the mode of the divine consciousness than in behalf of its 
necessity. One needs to be possessed of transcendent insight 
before claiming authority to deny that God can be revealed to 
Himself except by a substantial image of- Himself, and that 
subsisting in duplicate form, or as Son and Spirit. Only an 
indifferent support, therefore, is rendered to the fact of the 
Trinity by this speculation. 

The prominence which the trinitarian conception received 
in the philosophy of Hegel might appropriately be mentioned, 
were it not that the Hegelian trinity is quite other than that 
of the New Testament. In Hegel’s scheme Divine Persons 
proper recede in favor of the stages of a great process; namely, 
the universal or divine in itself, the divine objectified in the 


1 De Trin. x. 11, xiv. 6; Epist. clxix.; Serm, lii, 


226 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


world, and the divine coming to self-recognition in finite 
spirits.} 

We conclude, then, that the best word which philosophy 
has to say in behalf of the doctrine of the Trinity comes from 
a rational view of the demands of love, and from the interest 
which a pure theism has in maintaining that the universe of 
creatures is the product of God’s free act. The decisive 
ground for the doctrine is historical rather than speculative. 

The conclusion that the Trinity is unique, or without exact 
counterpart in the sphere of finite reality, involves the infer- 
ence that the word ‘‘Person,’’ as used in trinitarian termi- 
nology, is employed with some measure of restriction. The 
assumption of an eternal dependence of the Son and the 
Spirit upon the Father and the absolute exclusion of the pos- 
sibility of contrariety of feeling, will, or purpose on the part 
of Father, Son, and Spirit enter as limiting notions into the 
use of the historic term. So long as these limiting notions 
are firmly grasped, the employment of the word ‘‘ Person”’ 
cannot lead seriously astray; for they safeguard the funda- 
mental unity of the Godhead. In permitting them to rule 
our contemplation we keep clear of any real tritheistic im- 
plication. The thought of God is diversified to us by a war- 
rantable trinitarian representation, but not at the expense of 
compromising the conception ofa unitary ground of the world. 

From the foregoing it follows that an intelligible statement 


1 With whatever degree of right, Hegel acknowledged a foreshadowing of his 
trinitarian conception in Hinduism. Nitzsch is inclined to grant a partial corres- 
pondence between the two. He finds, however, very slight occasion to bring the 
Hindu doctrine of the Trimurti into comparison with the proper Chnistian teach- 
ing, the former being half-polytheistic, half-pantheistic, and cosmological in its 
type rather than ethical. (Lehrbuch der Evangelischen Dogmatik, 1896, p. 410.) 
Lehmann sees in the Hindu trinity little else than a convenient combination of 
divinities that had obtained a wide acknowledgment. ‘“Trimurti,” he says, “has 
never become a dogma or a real theory; it has had neither for faith nor specula- 
tion any noteworthy significance. It is simply an expression of the Indian syncre- 
tism, of the ambition to unite and blend together different cults.” (Lehrbuch der 
Religionsgeschichte, bearbeitet von Chantepie de la Saussaye, IT. 132.) 


TRINITARIAN DISTINCTIONS. 227 


of the doctrine of the Trinity is essentially comprised in a 
formula like this: Corresponding to the threefold manifesta- 
tion of Father, Son, and Spirit, there subsist in the Godhead, 
in a certain logical order, eternal and necessary distinctions, 
which enter into the divine consciousness and determine the 
perfection of the divine life. To affirm less than this is to 
fail to do justice to the total data of the subject. To assert 
much more is to resort to unintelligible categories, or to an 
unintelligible combination of categories. 


228 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


CPAP etn 


GOD AS CREATOR AND UPHOLDER OF THE WORLD, AND 
HIS PROVIDENCE THEREIN. | 


I. — CREATION CONSIDERED FROM THE STANDPOINT OF 
REVELATION. 


THE Bible deals with the theme of creation in the spirit of 
pious contemplation. The manifest aim of the Old Testament 
references to the subject is to attest the greatness and unquali- 
fied supremacy of Jehovah, and thereby to incite Israel to un- 
shaken trust and devotion. In the New Testament this aim 
is supplemented by the wish of the apostolic writers to show 
the relation of the Son of God at once to the Father and to 
the world. In either Testament the religious interest is com- 
pletely dominant. Out of several scores of passages,! there is 
not one which suggests that it was dictated by a purely his- 
toric, scientific, or philosophic interest. The first chapter of 
Genesis, it is true, gives more details than were required 
to present God as the creator of all things, and to set forth 
man’s relation to Him. These ends could have been effected 
without portioning off events by a scheme of days. Still such 


1 Gen. i, 1, ii. 3, ii. 4-23; Ex. xx. 113 Neh. ix. 6; Job ix. 9, x. 8-11, xxvi. 7-14, 
XXVili, 23-27, xxxiil. 4, xxxvil. 18, xxxviil. 4 to xxxix. 30; Ps. viii., xix. 1-6, xxiv. I, 2, 
xxxlll, 6-9, xc. 2, xCV. 5, Cli. 25, civ. 2~6, Cxxi. 2, cxxxv. 6, cxxxvi. 5-9, cxlvi. 6, 
exlviii. 5, 6; Prov. iii. 19, viii., xxx. 4; Isa. xxxvii. 16, xl. 12, 22, 26, 28, xlii. 5, 
xliv. 24, xlv. 9,12, 18, xviii, 13, li. 13, Ixiv. 8, Ixvi. 1,'23 Jer..x, 12, xxvii es eee 
35, xxxii. 17, li. 15, 19; Amos iv. 13, v. 8, ix. 6; Jonah i. 9; Zech. xii. 1; John i. 
3, 10; Acts iv. 24; Rom. i. 20; Eph. iii. 9; Col. i. 16; Heb. i. 2, ii. 10, iii. 4, xi. 
23) 2° Pet. 1. $5 Rev. ivir gt, mies: 7: 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 229 


a scheme obviously served a religious purpose, since it added 
the sanctity of a high religious association to the Jewish ar- 
rangement of the week. Supposing the writer, either by his 
own reflection or by tradition based on the reflection of some 
more primitive sage, or by special divine illumination, to have 
gained the conviction that creation was consummated through 
successive stages and reached its climax in the sixth stage, he 
needed no other interest than that of religion to incite him 
to fill out his theme substantially in the form in which it is 
presented. 

These facts have a significance that ought not to be dis- 
carded. Finding that forty-nine out of fifty references to 
creation were obviously rather the offspring of a religious in- 
terest than of scientific ambition, and that in the fiftieth the 
same interest is sufficiently discernible, we may properly be 
cautious about importing more of science into this particular 
account than belongs to it. In other words, the general 
method of the Bible, in dealing with the subject of creation, 
does not favor the expectation that the claims of physical 
science will be found to have been minutely satisfied in the 
first chapter of Genesis. Conceptions of nature being used 
elsewhere in the Scriptures as mere scaffolding for the erec- 
tion of the edifice of religious truth, it is antecedently probable 
that they are so used here. 

In the view of biblical exegetes this antecedent probability 
is becoming more and more a matter of certainty. While the 
superiority of the narrative in Genesis to the ethnic accounts, 
and its general agreement with science as respects the order 
of mundane conditions and the progress of life, may be alleged 
in behalf of its scientific character, there are still grave diffi- 
culties in the way of sustaining for it a proper scientific charac- 
ter. No one of the theories which have been proposed can 
be regarded as a real solvent of these difficulties. Take the 
restitution hypothesis, which interposes the geologic ages be- 


tween the first and second verses of the first chapter in Gene- 
16 


230 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


sis, and makes the narrative which begins with the third verse 
not so much an account of the primal creation as of a restitu- 
tion of order and life after a period of disruption. In the first 
place, this hypothesis has the disadvantage of appearing ut- 
terly foreign to the thought of the writer. He says nothing 
about a great catastrophe. He refers to the waste and void 
condition of the earth in precisely the terms which naturally 
he would have used if he were attempting to describe the 
state of the earth at its first origination. He speaks of the 
creation of light as if thereby a new factor was introduced, 
and not one which had already supplied a necessary condition 
to the life of plants and animals through untold centuries. In 
like manner each stage is recorded as if the original drama of 
creation was being presented. In the second place, the resti- 
tution hypothesis is contradicted by the fact that the heavenly 
bodies are not introduced till after the earth has been fitted up 
and clothed with plant life. This shows plainly that, in the 
thought of the writer, the first verse in his narrative was 
either used as a preamble, a statement of the general subject 
of which the details were to be given in order, or that it was 
meant to describe simply the creation of the materials of 
heaven and earth. If he had considered himself as having 
said that the heavenly bodies were made before the dawn of 
the rst day, he could not have felt called upon to assign the 
divine act of making them to the fourth day. To harmonize 
this assignment with the restitution hypothesis, one must sup- 
pose that the writer held the notion that the heavens, as 
well as the earth, had been broken up in some mighty catas- 
trophe, and so needed to be reconstituted. But he makes no 
reference to a catastrophe of this sort, and it is needless to 
say that no scientific authority will grant that the heavens 
were still in chaos when the earth had been brought to order 
and fruitfulness. If it be said that the account of the fourth 
day was meant to be descriptive, not of the making, but only 
of the appearing of the heavenly bodies, or the disclosure of 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 231 


their light by a removal of the intervening mists, it must be 
answered that such an interpretation is borrowed entirely from 
the conceived demands of science, and not at all from the 
facts of biblical language. That language, with its specifica- 
tion of the purpose which the heavenly bodies were to serve, 
implies that they were fashioned at that point of the creative 
process where they are mentioned —a view quite consonant 
with the geocentric scheme of the writer, which made the 
heavenly bodies mere adjuncts to the earth. In the third 
place, the restitution hypothesis offers no practical advan- 
tage in the way of reconciling science and revelation. If it 
assumes that after the chaotic irruption the earth was fitted 
up and replenished in six literal days, it affronts the conviction 
of the whole body of scientists respecting the law of continuity 
or gradual process in nature. On the same view, also, the 
theologian may well be puzzled to explain how. the Creator 
should have chosen to be so lavish of time in the primitive 
creation, or the original preparation of the forms of life, and 
so sparing in the work of restitution, unless it is worthy of 
belief that He had occasion to experiment with opposite 
methods. If, on the other hand, the scheme of ordinary days 
is not insisted upon, the restitution hypothesis effects nothing 
towards harmonizing the letter of the Bible with the demands 
of science. 

Taking the less violent and more current theory, that the 
passage in Genesis was meant to be an account of the primi- 
tive creation, but that the days stand for periods of indefinite 
length, we still find obstacles in the way of ascribing a scien- 
tific character to the narrative. Thus the firmament appears 
to have been regarded as a solid expanse, above which a part 
of the primitive mass of waters was stored.! Again, it is not 


1 With Gen. i. 6-8 compare Job xxxvii. 18; Prov. viii. 27; 2 Kings vii. 2; 
Ps. cxlviii. 4. The same notion is discoverable in the Babylonian account. The 
world-fashioner, Marduk, is there represented as cutting the slain monster Tiamat 
inte two halves, “The one half he fashioned as a covering for the heavens, 


232 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION, 


accordant with scientific inference to suppose that the whole 
cycle of plant life was completed before that of animal life be- 
gan, and still less that a special cycle was interposed between 
them. These are difficulties which confront us even if it 
be admitted that a sound exegesis allows the word “days ”’ to 
be taken in the sense of long periods or ages. But it is very 
doubtful whether it is exegetically permissible to suppose 
that the writer had any thought of long periods. The fact 
may be alleged, it is true, that there were, according to his 
representation, no visible sun and stars to measure by their 
revolutions the length of the first three days. But evidently 
in his thought the day was constituted by an alternation of 
light and darkness, and there is nothing to show that he did 
not think of this alternation as taking place in the ordinary in. 
tervals. In antique thought the light was regarded as a lumi- 
nous substance, having indeed a prominent source in the 
heavenly bodies, but not wholly emanating from them.! It is 
rather probable than otherwise that this was the thought of the 
sacred writer, and that, accordingly, he regarded the motions of 
the heavenly bodies as only more distinctly marking off the 
coming and recession of the light which had place before the 
proper rulers of day and night —the sun, moon, and stars — 
had appeared. It may not be easy to show positively that the 
writer thought only of ordinary days. But, inasmuch as he 
gives no hint to the contrary, and in the immediate connec- 
tion, where he refers to the hallowing of the seventh day, evi- 
dently uses the word “day ”’ in its ordinary acceptation, it must 





attaching a bolt and placing there a guardian, with orders not to permit the waters 
to come out.’. It is evident that the canopy of heaven is meant. Such is the 
enormous size of Tiamat that one-half of her body, flattened out so as to serve as 
a curtain, is stretched across the heavens to keep the ‘ upper waters’ — ‘the waters 
above the firmament’ as the Book of Genesis puts it— from coming down. To 
secure the execution of this design a bolt is drawn in front of the canopy and a 
guardian placed there, like at a city wall, to prevent anyone or anything from com- 
ing out.” (Morris Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 428.) 
1 See Job xxxviii. 19, 20. 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 233 


be pronounced a venturesome and ill-supported assumption 
which claims that he had in mind periods or ages. Indeed, 
but for the association of the subject with the Jewish week, 
shorter intervals than ordinary days would have been more 
agreeable to his way of thinking than longer intervals. As 
appears very strikingly in the description of the first day’s 
work, God had but to speak, and it was done. Suppose now 
the writer conceived that this day stood for an indefinite pe- 
riod ; in that event it must have appeared to him that God had 
a long rest, an immense Sabbath, before undertaking the second 
day’s work, instead of first reaching a Sabbath at the end of 
six days. His notion of the method of almighty power is 
congruous with that of the seventh-day rest only on the sup- 
position of moderate intervals between the creative acts. 

But perhaps it will be said that the author’s understanding 
of his sketch of creation is not the full measure of its signifi- 
cance, his language being divinely intended to symbolize more 
truth than he had grasped. An assumption of this kind un- 
derlies the vision hypothesis, according to which the theme 
of creation was unfolded to the sacred writer in a series of 
pictures, which, indeed, shadowed forth the general outlines of 
the subject, but were not meant, as respects accurate knowl- 
edge, to anticipate the researches of natural science. This view 
seems, at first thought, to agree very well with the cast of 
the creation narrative. But there are several queries in con- 
nection with it which need to be answered. If the subject 
matter was given to the writer in the form of visions, and was 
in no part supplied by tradition or his own thinking, why were 
not the visions so shaped as to be in more distinct agreement 
with the conclusions of natural science, for example, on the 
function of the firmament and the relation of the heavenly 
bodies to the earth in point of time? Again, if the Divine 
Spirit furnished outright such views of nature as are contained 
in the first chapter of Genesis, why did not the same Spirit 
so dominate all subsequent references to the subject as to 


234 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


secure an appearance of entire agreement with that chapter ? 
How happens it that in the narrative in the second chapter in 
Genesis —— which the later school of exegetes assigns to a dif- 
ferent hand from that which penned the first chapter — the 
creation of plants and animals is apparently represented as 
subsequent to that of man? How happens it that in the 
Book of Job the stars are represented as already on hand 
when the foundations of the earth were laid (xxxvili. 4-7) ? 
A due weighing of these points can hardly fail to suggest that 
considerable scope must be given to a purely human element in 
any theory which is to run clear of arbitrariness and artificiality. 

On the whole, the most eligible conclusion is that the 
framework of conceptions respecting nature in the creation 
narrative was not a product of direct revelation, but rather of 
human thinking purified and ennobled to some extent by the 
reaction of the high religious standpoint supplied by revealed 
truth. At least, the agency of the Divine Spirit, as relates 
to the genesis of this order of conceptions, cannot be assumed 
to have been fully controlling. The divine element in the 
narrative is preéminently its lofty theism, its pure and noble 
conception of God and of man’s relation to Him. A conception 
so high, so well-guarded, and expressed in terms of such sim- 
ple majesty, was worthy of its birthplace within the sphere of 
revelation. It could not have been found outside of this 
sphere in that age, and is on a level with the best thought of 
any age. As Dillmann remarks, it is the higher religious 
faith with which the biblical narrative is informed that gives it 
its stamp of superiority. ‘ Because the proper sharp distinction 
is made between God and the world, and God is thought in 
His full sublimity, spirituality, and goodness, the representa- 
tion of the course of creation is here sublimer, worthier and 
more correct than anywhere else [in ancient story ], free 
from admixture of the grotesque and the fantastic, simple, 
sober, clear and true.’’ ! 


1 Die Genesis, p. 9. In Eng. Edit. I. 42, 43. 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 235 


The Bible contains no formal definition of creation, and con- 
sequently no express declaration that all finite things were 
made ex nthilo. This truth, however, is implied in the abso- 
lute supremacy which is ascribed to God throughout the whole 
range of the Scriptures. Moreover, certain individual pas- 
sages that treat of creation may be regarded as almost assert- 
ing the ex zzhilo doctrine. This holds of the first verse of 
Genesis, unless that verse is to be regarded as simply a state- 
ment of the general subject to be treated ; for, in that event 
a contrast would be presented in the narrative between creat- 
ing and specific fashioning, which would imply for the former 
the sense of producing from nothing. In our opinion the 
verse in question is simply a statement of the subject to be 
unfolded. Accordingly we find a clearer indication of belief 
in creation ex nihilo in Col. 1. 17, where the Son of God is 
declared to be before all things ; and in Heb. xi. 3, where it 
is said, ‘‘ By faith we understand that the worlds have been 
framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not 
been made out of things which do appear.’’ One can indeed 
deny that either of these passages indubitably excludes a form- 
less invisible matter, existing from eternity ; but when we join 
with these sentences the notion of God’s absolute supremacy, 
as characteristic of Jewish thinking, it is only warrantable to 
regard them as meant to teach creation in the most unquali- 
fied sense. 

In this point of view the biblical system stands in enviable 
contrast with the general trend of pagan thinking. Placing 
free personality at the head, starting with Spirit, as opposed to 
a primitive chaos, it has no occasion to assume a blind nature- 
power, or fate, over against the will of God; and can repre- 
sent Divine Providence as conducting the world-process 
toward the goal of its own choice, instead of working within a 
predetermined cycle, where it can indeed modify the relation 
of individual things, but is powerless to control the general 
outcome. Manifestly the primacy of spirit over nature, charac- 


236 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


teristic of the biblical standpoint, is an item of far-reaching 
consequence. 

The motive of creation, like that of all divine acts, is to be 
sought in the moral nature of God, which has already been 
defined as holy love. To sucha nature a kingdom founded 
on the principles of righteousness and love, and thus at once 
manifesting the highest excellence and sharing the deepest 
blessedness, must appear supremely worthy, the foremost end 
for which even a divine will can be engaged. God, then, 
created in order that there might be a kingdom which should 
reflect His holy love and find therein its everlasting beatifica- 
tion. It was necessary for Him to create only as it is neces- 
sary for a generous spirit to do generous deeds. No act could 
be more free which is equally conformable to rational ends. 
It is wrongly characterized when it 1s described as compelled, 
or even necessary, and is best defined as a free act supremely 
agreeable to God’s ethical nature. All things were created 
for His pleasure (Rev. iv. 11.) ; but from His very nature as 
holy love His pleasure is most perfectly fulfilled in bringing 
many sons unto glory, that is, to the likeness of His holiness 
love, and blessedness (Heb. ii. 10; 1 John iii. 1, 2). 


II. — CREATION FROM THE STANDPOINT OF SCIENCE. 


As the Bible, in its proper function, cannot foreclose the 
way to science, so natural science cannot properly interfere 
with the work of revelation or of philosophy. Its subject- 
matter is the phenomenal world, the sphere of perceived or 
inferred changes— those in the past which have left some 
record as well as those which are still open to observation. 
It can take note of the apparent connection between one 
change and another, and as a result of continuous observation 
and comparison can make inferences more or less trustworthy 
on the order of changes, or the so-called laws of nature. But 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 237 


natural science as such does not get out of or beyond the 
series of natural changes. Its sphere is that of mutations, 
and not of origins proper or ends proper. The moment that 
the natural scientist begins to dogmatize about primal causes 
or ultimate ends, he has stepped out of his own domain into 
that of religion or philosophy. 

This point of view determines the bearing of the doctrine 
of evolution, regarded as a scientific theory, upon the subject 
before us. In its proper scientific sense the doctrine of evolu- 
tion does not at all preclude a theistic conception of creation. 
It simply affirms within nature a process which culminates in 
the highest forms of organic life, and leaves us perfectly free 
to reason respecting the agent back of the process. This 
has been acknowledged by the most prominent advocates of 
evolution. Thus Romanes tells us that the modern scientific 
doctrine has done nothing toward determining the nature of 
the government, whether personal or impersonal, which is over 
the world of life and mind. “This is a question,’’ he says, 
“which cannot be affected by any advance of science, further 
than science has proved herself able to dispose of erroneous 
arguments based upon ignorance of nature. For while the 
sphere of science is necessarily restricted to that of natural 
causation which it is her office to explore, the question touch- 
ing the xature of this natural causation is one which neces- 
sarily lies without the whole sphere of such causation itself : 
therefore, it lies beyond any possible intrusion by science.” ! 
Le Conte remarks, ‘‘ What science, and especially evolution, 
destroys, is not the idea of design, but only our low anthropo- 
morphic notions of the mode of working of the Designer.” ? 
He contends also that the theory of evolution in no wise mili- 
tates against a spiritual philosophy ; and finds no obstacle to 
this conclusion in the fact that some eminent scientists are 


1 Darwin and after Darwin, pp. 413, 414. 
2 Evolution, its Nature and Evidences, and its Relation to Religious Thought, 
p. 346. 


238 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


patrons of materialism. ‘In a question of science, viz., the 
law of evolution, their authority is deservedly high, but ina 
question of philosophy, viz., materialism, it is far otherwise. 
If the pure scientists smile when theological philosophers, un- 
acquainted with the methods of science, undertake to dogma- 
tize on the question of evolution, they must pardon the phil- 
osophers if they also smile when the pure scientists imagine 
that they can at once solve questions in philosophy which 
have agitated the human mind from the earliest times.” } 

As evolution does not determine the view which is to be 
held respecting the agent concerned in the initiation and 
progress of the world-order or of organic life, so it does not 
determine the conception which is to be held of the end of 
creation, or that part of the end which finds expression in the 
dignity and destiny of man; at least, it has no prerogative to 
contradict at this point the verdict of religious philosophy. 
Genetic connection of one species of animals with another, 
and of man with the highest in the list preceding him, does 
not prove anything disparaging either to his dignity or his 
destiny. Whatever may have been their discoverable ante- 
cedents, the powers and capacities of men are real facts, and 
are rationally considered prophetic of a destiny of correspond- 
ing character. Antecedents are significant only of the order 
in which the creative or fashioning power proceeded, As Pro- 
fessor Bowne remarks: “When the higher forms are produced 
they are what they are, and are not to be confounded with 
their antecedents. We may indeed class them together for 
logical convenience, and may speak of later forms as modifica- 
tions of earlier ones; but both the identification and the modi- 
fication are purely subjective, and have no significance for the 
real things. Apart from our subjective manipulation, the fact 
is the individuals and the power which produces individuals 
through the processes of generation, in such a way that they 


1 Page 287. 


ee 


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CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 239 


admit of being classified according to an ascending scale.” ! 
Applying this truth to the supposed connection between human 
and animal minds, he says: “To identify them because they 
are all minds would be like identifying a watch and a loco- 
motive because they are both machines, or lead and gold be- 
cause they are both metals. To identify them because the 
term mind is one, is to overlook the fact that the thing is many, 
and that no classification removes the incommunicable differ- 
ence of individuality. .. . If it is no reflection upon the nature 
of mind that it was once in the embryonic state of infancy and 
the whimsical state of childhood, so also it is no reflection 
upon it that it was preceded by others whose development 
never went beyond the animal stage.” 

Approximately equivalent language might be cited from 
scientists who are known as steadfast advocates of evolution- 
ary faith. Thus Le Conte says respecting the chief points in 
which animals show a psychical kinship with men: “In every 
one of these the resemblance is great, but the difference is 
immense, and not only in degree but also in kind. In every 
case it is like shadow and substance, promise and fulfillment, 
or, still better, it is like embryo and child. The change from 
one to the other is like to a birth into a higher sphere, the 
beginning of another cycle of evolution.”? “ Assuredly,” 
claims Lankester, “it cannot lower our conception of man’s 
dignity if we have to regard him as ‘the flower of all the 
ages,’ bursting from the great stream of life which has flowed 
on through countless epochs with one increasing purpose, 
rather than as an isolated, miraculous being, put together 
abnormally from elemental clay.’’? The same writer speaks 
somewhat tolerantly of the supposition that in the production 
of man’s spiritual nature a direct agency of the Creator 
is to be assumed; and another zealous advocate of evolution, 


1 Methodist Review, November, 1893. 
2 Evolution etc., p. 324. 
8 The Advancement of Science, Occasional Essays and Addresses, 1890, p. 52. 


240 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


A. R. Wallace, goes further, declaring positively for the theory 
of special influx from a spiritual domain.! But these are items 
of minor significance in this connection. The fact of prin- 
cipal moment is, that nothing which evolutionary science has 
discovered respecting the antecedents of man stands in the 
way of a high conception of his nature and destiny. 

Some of the principal considerations urged in behalf of the 
fact of evolution in organic nature are the following: (1) The 
analogy of inorganic nature, or the advance of the world toa 
habitable condition by slow stages through an immense period 
of time. (2) The simplicity of archaic types as compared with 
later forms. (3) The resemblances which may be traced, stage 
by stage, through the whole line of organic forms, or, at least, 
through a large part of it. (4) The similarity of the embryonic 
phases of higher forms to the mature phases of lower forms —a 
fact which suggests inheritance modified by accelerated and 
heightened development. (5) The existence in the more com- 
plex animals of functionless or rudimentary structures, these 
structures being indicative of changes of organism resulting 
from changed conditions, and thus testifying to the plastic 
character of organic nature. (6) Geographical and chronologi- 
cal distribution according to a particular plan, or the correla- 
tion in space and time of any one type with those most nearly 
allied to it, together with the fact that isolated regions com- 
monly exhibit organic forms quite as special as the conditions 
of the regions. (7) The proved efficiency of artificial selec- 
tion, or breeding, to produce varieties, what has been effected 
in this line suggesting that nature, with her vaster periods and 
subtler arts, can work out immeasurable transformations. 

The chief factors in evolution as recognized by naturalists 
are (1) physical environment, (2) increased use or disuse of 
organs enforced or permitted by the environment, (3) natural 
selection, or the survival of the fittest amid the struggle for 





1 Darwinism, 1889, pp. 474-476. 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 241 


existence, (4) sexual selection, or the advantage of the stronger 
and more attractive as respects mating. Ultra Darwinians 
place the main stress upon the third factor; but some of 
the more recent experts, as well as Lamarck and the older 
naturalists, have contended that a large place must be given 
to the first two factors. In their view characters acquired by 
use, as well as peculiarities coming by birth, must be regarded 
as capable of transmission.! 

In opposition to evolution there may be alleged, Qa) The 
confessed absence of any proof of spontaneous generation. 
“At the present moment,’ says Huxley, “there is not a 
shadow of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis does 
take place, or has taken place, within the historic period dur- 
ing which existence on the globe is recorded.” * This fact, to 
be sure, does not directly antagonize evolution, since a very 
pronounced evolutionist may announce, as did Darwin, that 
his doctrine does not touch the origin of life, being concerned 
simply with its development. Still, the absence of any proof 
of spontaneous generation gives a certain standing-room to the 
idea of special creation. If there was a direct use of divine 
power to initiate life, progress in nature by the instrumentality 
of the miracle seems not to be wholly alien to the Creator’s 
plan. An instrumentality that was employed once may con- 
ceivably have been employed more than once. (2) The 
absence of any trace of such a mass of intermediate or tran- 
sitional forms as must have existed on the supposition of the 
slow mutation of types. The imperfection of the geologi- 
cal record may be cited in explanation of the deficit; yet it 
must be granted that a consideration of the missing links is not 
helpful to a scientific confidence. (3) The fact that the indi. 


nr er nr 


1So Eimer, Cope, Romanes (within limits), and others against Weismann. 

2 Encyc. Brit. gth edit., Art. Biology. ‘The study of the cell,” says E. B, 
Wilson, “has on the whole seemed to widen rather than to narrow the enormous 
gap that separates even the lowest forms of life from the inorganic world.” (The 
Cell in Development and Inheritance, p. 330.) 


242 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


viduals of such varieties as have been produced by artificial 
selection are not in the least degree infertile with the indi- 
viduals of the parent stock. Let all the kinds of dogs in exis- 
tence be turned loose upon a limited area, and it would not be 
long before their wide distinctions would be obliterated by 
intercrossing. How then does nature manage to prevent the 
swamping effects of intercrossing so as to secure the evolution 
of diverging types? This question is not easily answered ; 
and naturalists confess as much when they resort to unex- 
plained tendencies, and assume that a kind of fatality operates 
to change the reproductive organs in the interest of the in- 
fertility of new varieties with the parent stock.! (4) The dif- 
ficulty of so marshalling the facts, that one necessary phase 
of evolution doctrine shall not be sustained at the expense of 
another. For example, one phase requires much stress to be 
placed upon the plasticity of organic life. This is necessary 
to account for the enormous transformation which is assumed 
to have taken place. But, on the other hand, it has to be 
asked: If organic life is so plastic, why have such inconsider- 
able changes occurred under the operation of natural laws 
within the period of human observation? Why does that 
period afford no sign of a natural advance of animals toward the 
plane of man or toward any higher type? If it be said that the 
weight of heredity now holds them back, the question arises 
whether that weight could have been appreciably less at vari- 
ous points in the evolutionary process. Untold centuries were 
back of the species that are reckoned as the nearest antece- 
dents to man. It may be supposed, indeed, that the species 
from which the human branch emerged was comparatively new 
at the time of the emergence; but to assume that in every 
instance an incipient or newly-formed species was the starting- 
point for another new species implies such a rapidity in the 
succession of species, and in the progress of the conditions 


1 Romanes as referred to by Le Conte, Evolution and its Relation to Religious 


Thought, pp. 76-79. 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 243 


upon which that succession may be accounted dependent, as 
is not fully agreeable to evolutionary science. There seems 
in fact to be a contrariety of interest as respects the time ele- 
ment. It suits one demand of evolution doctrine to suppose 
modifications of organisms to take place with exceeding slow- 
ness. When the limited achievements of artificial selection 
are under review, it is convenient to refer to the immense 
zons through which nature has wrought out and fixed the 
various products of her workmanship. On the other hand, 
when the attention is directed to the absence of intermediate 
forms in the geological record, it is convenient to assume crises, 
jumps in nature, or seasons of rapid evolution. Logically the 
intervention of such seasons of rapid development of perma- 
nent varieties, or species, may be conceivable. But if the 
stimulus of special natural conditions can effect this, the ques- 
tion why the stimulus of artificial conditions cannot do more 
in the production of permanent forms needs to be well 
answered. 

Objections of this kind may not suffice to undermine faith 
in the fact of evolution. Certainly the confidence of naturalists 
has not yet shown any token of wavering. While perhaps 
they are not quite so sure as formerly respecting the method 
of evolution, they have revealed no disposition to surrender the 
fact. But this much at least must be conceded to the objec- 
tions: they hint that no complete insight into the subject of 
organic nature has yet been reached, and that the scientist 
may well ornament his discourse with something of that 
modesty which he is apt to regard as entirely normal in the 
theologian. The lack of the grace is the less excusable in 
view of the very excellent examples of it which have been 
afforded by eminent scientists. 


244 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


IIT. — CREATION FROM THE STANDPOINT OF PHILOSOPHY. 


The verdict enforced by the tenor of revelation, that the 
world was created ex nzhilo, rather than formed from an eter- 
nally existing stuff, is entirely agreeable to philosophy. As 
was observed in connection with the cosmological argument 
for the existence of God, this conclusion is most conformable 
to the demand of the human mind for unity, and is commended 
by the law of parsimony. Obviously also it is the most eligible 
conclusion from the standpoint of devotion or worship. The 
conception of a world-creator is higher than that of a world- 
fashioner. Moreover, as has been argued, there seems to be 
no guarantee of a perfect world-fashioner unless the same can 
be viewed as likewise the creator of his materials. Anything 
present to him without his will might conceivably be imper- 
fectly subject to his working. 

It may be thought that a substitute for creation ex nzhilo 
can be found, without sacrificing the absolute supremacy of 
God, if recourse is made to the doctrine of emanations, and it 
is assumed that things are made from God’s own nature, sub- 
stance, or power. But this view is incompatible with any true 
and exact thought of God. He is no divisible mass; like 
every real agent He is an indivisible unity. 

But is the notion of creation ex nzhzlo properly conceivable ? 
Some have answered in the negative. Sir William Hamilton, 
for example, contended that the human mind cannot conceive 
the sum total of existence as being either increased or dimin- 
ished, and consequently can understand by creation only the 
existing subsequently in act of what existed previously in 
power, as by annihilation it understands the subsequent exist- 
ence in power of what previously existed in act. Now it is 
to be conceded that imagination cannot picture the process of 
creation ; and also that thought cannot construe that process. 
But the fact of creation, or the addition of the existence of 
the world to the existence of God without any diminution of 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 245 


His being, can be admitted in thought, even as we admit in 
thought the fact of a power of positive initiation, pertaining to 
our volitional nature, without ever gaining insight into the pro- 
cess. To refuse to admit this much is to shut out the proper 
conception of creation. What philosophy has to do, then, is 
not to construe the process, but to secure valid thoughts both 
of the agent and of the product of His action, both of God 
and the creature. Any view which compromises the indivisi- 
ible unity of God, or gives too much independence to the 
creature, or assigns to it too little reality, it is the province 
of philosophy to criticise or reject. Beyond this, as we con- 
ceive, its competency does not extend. 

A kind of eternal substratum for things has been discovered 
by some thinkers in the ideas or patterns which exist in the 
divine mind. The more emphatic realists among the medi- 
zeval scholastics were of this way of thinking. Herein they 
were following in the wake of Plato, who predicated of general 
notions a real substantiality, and made them the antecedents 
and substratum of individual things. But the patterns in the 
divine mind are only the logical presuppositions of things. To 
make anything else of them than pure conceptions is to go 
beyond all warrant of analogy and gratuitously to postulate a 
nondescript entity. Conceptions, or patterns, and resembling 
individuals made in conformity with the patterns, are all the 
elements which are needed or warranted in an inventory of 
finite things. Genera and species have value as subjective 
classifications, or mental summaries of the resembling features 
of individuals ; but to make them real for the things them- 
selves is giving exaggerated honor to a superfluous and unman- 
ageable figment of the speculative imagination. If it be ob- 
jected that this view leaves us only isolated individuals, it is 
to be answered that finite reality is in fact made up of individ- 
uals connected solely by capabilities of interaction, which 
capabilities depend at bottom upon the fundamental unity; in 


other words, upon God. Aside from the individual beings and 
17 


246 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


their interconnection in this manner, all finite unities are con- 
ceptual or subjective. 

The relation of creation to time is a subject which has elic- 
ited not a little discussion. In the first place, it is to be in- 
terpeted in the light of God’s intrinsic timelessness. Since 
He has a perfect grasp of Himself He is, in the essential 
mode of His being, above the experience of succession, and so 
above time. Accordingly, creation, as giving rise to changing 
being, must be regarded as having initiated time, and the 
world — that is, a certain sum of finite reality —is as old as 
time itself. In this sense it may be said that the world has 
always existed ; no time can be thought that is not viewed as 
co-existent with finite things. This of course is quite differ- 
ent from saying that the world is eternal. The assertion of 
its originated, dependent, and changing being cancels in re- 
spect to it the proper notion of eternity. 

It was noticed in the treatment of the divine attributes that, 
although God in His absolute being is above the category of 
time, He must be regarded as recognizing His own workman- 
ship in all that pertains to it, the time characteristic included. 
As time is recognized by Him for all that it is actually, it is 
entirely conceivable that creation proceeds through temporal 
intervals, or at least respects an order which from our point of 
view must appear to be inclusive of temporal intervals. No 
speculative insight can assure us that divine omnipotence is 
not still progressing with the work of creation. 


IV.— CONSERVATION. 


As the references of the Bible to the theme of creation were 
born of a vivid sense of the might and supremacy of God, so 
in general were its references to the conservation of creatures. 
A further use, however, is fulfilled by the latter class of refer- 
ences in that they are made to emphasize the condescending 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 247 


nearness and compassionate ministry of God to the works of 
His hands. Both points of view may be discerned in Paul’s 
speech at Athens.! 

Rationally considered, conservation must be regarded as 
closely related to creation. Some have been inclined to iden- 
tify the two. Augustine used language which suggests that 
conservation may be viewed as a creatio continua* But com- 
plete identity cannot be admitted. If nothing else stands in 
the way, there is an insuperable obstacle in the existence 
of free personalities. A free personality, or a being gifted 
with self-motion, is, in its very idea, a cause or substance. It 
has a certain standing of its own, if not by indefeasible right, 
at least as a matter of fact. It is a second cause, not indeed 
independent of the great First Cause, but yet not absolutely 
determined by it in the use of its powers. The positing of 
this second cause with its capacity for free self-conscious 
agency is creation. The upholding of it in such a way as not 
to cancel self-determination is conservation. So far as we 
view a finite personality under the category of creation, we view 
it as absolutely determined. When we view it under the cate- 
gory of conservation we must regard the divine agency as 
allowing a certain scope to the second cause: in other words, 
we have instead of absolute determination the thought of a 
divine codperation or concursus. It is possible indeed to speak 
of an absolute determination to freedom, or of the creating of 
a being with the sum of his belongings, all free action included. 
But the terms of such statements are contradictory. The 
consistent notion is that of creating a being capable of free 
action and letting him act freely. A being that is only the 
continuous flow of the energy of will in another being does 
not answer to the description of an agent or free personality.® 


1 Acts xvii. 25-28. Compare Nehemiah ix. 6; Job xii, 10, xxxiv. 14, 15; Ps. 
Ixv. Q-II, xc. I, Civ. 29, 30, cxlv. 14-16; Matt. vi. 26-30; Col. i. 17; Heb. i. 3. 

2 De Civ. Dei, xii. 25. 

® On the problem of the creation of beings at once free and dependent, these 


248 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


When we associate God with a created person we are deal- 
ing with two agents, and cannot consistently reduce the second 
to a mere product. But how is it when we descend to imper- 
sonal nature? As there is no occasion to assume here any 
self-motion, have we any guarantee of substantiality? What 
reason is there for supposing that impersonal nature is any- 
thing more than a constant energizing of the Divine Being, 
a creatio continua? It must be granted that there is no very 
cogent ground for supposing that it is aught else. If it be 
claimed that the same Being who. gives substantial existence 
to persons can also posit an impersonal nature which has a 
proper substantiality, it may be replied that the law of parsi- 
mony does not favor the assumption of a substantiality which 
is not required by any known fact, and which cannot be seen 
to subserve any purpose. If it be urged that a denial of the 
substantiality of impersonal nature savors of idealism, and is 
of sceptical tendency as discrediting the testimony of the 
senses, it can be answered that a continuous divine energiz- 
ing, according to a scheme of law, is for us as truly an objec- 
tive reality as would be a world endowed with a species of 
independent or substantial existence, and that it is entirely 


words of Andrew Seth may well claim our notice: “The speculative reason sees 
no alternative between absolute dependence, which would make us merely the 
pipes upon which the divine musician plays, and absolute independence, which 
would make the world consist of a plurality of self-subsistent real beings. These 
are the only kinds of relation which it finds intelligible. But it seems to me that 
it must be, in the nature of the case, impossible for the finite spirit to understand 
the mode of its relation to the infinite and absolute Spirit in which it lives. ‘That 
relation could only be intelligible from the absolute point of view. The fact, then, 
that we cannot reconcile the partial independence and freedom of the finite self 
with its acknowledged dependence upon God in other respects, need not force us 
to abandon our primary moral conviction, in deference to a speculative theory, 
which may be applying a finite plumb-line to measure the resources of the infinite. 
After all, why should the creation of beings with a real, though partial, freedom 
and independence be an absolute impossibility? It is certainly the only view 
which makes the world a real place——-which makes the whole labor of history 
more than a shadow flight or aimless phantasmagoria.” (Two Lectures on Theism, 
pp. 47, 48.) 


CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 249 


beyond the competency of the senses to determine whether 
the objective reality has the one character or the other. If 
the charge of affiliation with pantheism be raised against the 
view that impersonal nature is only a product of the continuous 
exercise of God's volitional energy, it can be said that a scheme 
which assails neither the personality of God nor of man, and, 
instead of identifying nature with God, views it as the pro- 
duct of His free determination, has nothing of the bane of 
pantheism. 

The question is one which need not greatly disturb the 
theologian. No practical interest is involved, and the subject 
does not fall so clearly within the field of rational insight as to 
make dogmatic assertion appropriate. For persons self-motion 
and continuous identity must be claimed, and consequently 
substantiality. Whether mere things have any substantiality, 
so that in their case there is room for a distinction between 
creation and conservation, we are not required by any theologi- 
cal exigency to determine. 


V.— PROVIDENCE. 


From the doctrine of the constant and necessary depend- 
ence of creatures it is manifest that God unceasingly touches 
the universe at every point. Through the expenditure of 
a certain efficiency He is in all things, as well as above 
all things. 

From this point of view it appears necessary to affirm a 
divine providence that is absolutely co-extensive with finite 
reality. As God has to do with all things, and the perfection 
of His consciousness and intelligence forbids us to think 
that He does aught unconsciously, or without good reason, 
we must conclude, in spite of the difficulty of applying the 
thought in detail, that He takes notice of everything, and is 
strictly indifferent to no item of reality. This seems to be 


250 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


the biblical conception, and it is set forth in specially vivid 
terms in the teaching of Christ.! 

Against the theory of an all-inclusive providence two main 
objections may be alleged. In the first place, many things 
seem to be intrinsically so insignificant, and to receive actu- 
ally so little consideration that it is difficult tu believe that 
God makes any account of them whatever. Supposing that 


some design is served by the general arrangement of seas and 


- continents, what interest can the Almighty have in many of 
the subordinate groupings of matter? What reason is there 
for believing that any one of twenty possible collocations would 
not be just as pleasing to Him as the existing one in a given 
district? Is it clear that He has any care for the minute 
forms of life, when they must be crushed right and left by 
the necessary movements of the larger animals? Can it be 
seen that He sets any value on the moths whose instincts 
lead them to rush to their destruction in any flame that en- 
tices and bewilders their sight? Can the sustenance of poi- 
sonous reptiles be an object with Him, when man’s duty to 
himself and his kind binds him to destroy them at every 
opportunity ? Many like questions can be repeated. At various 
points 1t seems as though some things which have gotten into 
the world-system are accidental or worse. In one and another 
instance we may perhaps suggest some mitigation of apparent 
uselessness or harm. But we cannot always do even this much. 
In general we exhibit the best discretion by acknowledging 
limited insight and leaning to the view which is commended 
to us by the worth of the divine ideal to our thought and 
feeling and by our faith in revelation. 

The second objection is the existence of physical evil, or 
suffering, not to speak, in the present connection, of moral 
evil. Where a moral subject is concerned, who needs dis- 
cipline for his moral correction or perfecting, suffering is 


1 Matt. vi. 26-30, x. 29, 30, xii. 36. See also Job xxxviii. to xli.; Ps. civ., cxxxix. 





CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 251 


largely explained. If still an enigma in particular instances, 
its presence is in general accounted for. Indeed, a world in 
which moral evil should not be accompanied by suffering could 
not be justified. It would appear in flagrant contradiction to 
the fitness of things. But how explain the vast quantum of 
suffering in the animal world, the preying of one species upon 
another, a carnival of slaughter continued through countless 
centuries? In dealing with this difficulty, we may be coun- 
selled in the first place not to make the picture darker than 
the facts ; in other words, not to overlook the consideration 
that in the aggregate the pleasures of animals probably exceed 
their pains. Again, from the standpoint of evolution it may 
be said that perfection of life is a higher end than mere 
sensuous pleasure, that struggle is the necessary means 
of development, and that sensibility, with consequent liability 
to suffering, is an indispensable incentive to struggle. And 
in truth it is reasonable to affirm that the end outweighs the 
expense of the process. If we admit the Christian concep- 
tion of an everlasting kingdom of perfected rational beings, 
we have good ground to affirm that it is appropriate that 
the whole creation should travail and groan in pain until now, 
provided such a consummation cannot be otherwise reached. 
But it is just this proviso which is the point of difficulty. 
The question arises, why could not the end have been reached 
without the vast expenditure? Why the long reign of suffer- 
ing and death in the animal kingdom before man’s advent 
and the beginning of his education? It would mitigate the 
problem in one aspect, if we could suppose that the genera- 
tions of animals which have gone to their death were not 
mere antecedents to men, but in some way are compre- 
hended in the end, and so gain a requital for their share of 
misery and mortality. The words of Paul, Rom. vill. 19-22, 
if pressed to the utmost limit of their possible significance, can 
be made to support this view. But it is doubtful whether 
Paul meant to assert that the past generations of animals are 


252 GOD'S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


to live again. His words seem rather to be a poetical or: ora- 
torical expression of the more general thought, that man must © 
reach his goal before irrational nature can reach her goal, that 
the transfiguration of the former must precede the transfigura. 
tion of the latter, and that, accordingly, the latter may figura- 
tively be represented as feeling the bonds of its imperfection 
and corruption, and groaning after the state of incorruption 
which is to characterize the new heavens and the new earth. 
It is to be noted, moreover, that the assignment of animals to 
a part in the future life, if it eliminates one difficulty, makes 
another. Certainly, unless our esthetic standards are to 
change, there are some animal types that we could not regard 
as embellishments of the world to come. 

The old explanation of natural evil as purely subordinate 
to a moral end, as an object-lesson or means of discipline to 
men, is not fully adapted to the modern scientific view of the 
world. The trouble is, there is vastly more object lesson 
than has been utilized or seems to be necessary. As the vol- 
ume to the page, so is the history of animal life preceding 
man to that which is contemporary with his career. Thus the 
long reign of suffering and death is not adequately explained 
from this point of view. Granting that everything in nature 
may properly be made tributary to a moral end, no one can 
see that the vast quantum of suffering and death has actually 
been made thus tributary. 

Our conclusion then is, that we cannot fully explain natural 
evil as a constituent in the world process. We can believe 
that within the limits of the animal kingdom the good or the 
pleasurable has exceeded the evil or painful ; we can admit 
the possibility that within the given area of the world a 
scheme of comparatively rapid succession of birth and death 
may provide for a larger sum of sensuous enjoyment than 
could be realized in a scheme contemplating few individuals 
and a much longer term of existence; we can see the pro- 
priety of mingling with the environment of a probationary 





CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 253 


sinful being enough of the sombre element to remind of 
judgment and to wean from undue earthliness; we can 
cherish the supposition that compensations are provided, 
either in the present or in the future, for the disproportionate 
suffering which seems to befall not a few members of the 
human family; but actual insight into the wisdom and 
benevolence of the world scheme as respects all its con- 
tents we must acknowledge we do not possess. As was 
indicated in the treatment of the divine attributes, the 
outlook upon the world will ever need to be supplemented 
by the vision of Christian faith. It is only when God 
is seen as He is revealed in Christ, that it becomes 
fully possible for us to believe that He is one who notes the 
fall of the sparrow, and numbers the very hairs upon the 


heads of His children. 
The subject of miracles having been sketched in another 


connection, it is not necessary here to justify the conclusion 
that God’s providence is, or may be, exercised in special as well 
as in ordinary ways. As the scheme of impersonal nature is 
only His method of working, and all therein is perfectly plastic 
to His hands, it makes no sort of difficulty, collision, or catas- 
trophe, for Him to bring in any new fact or factor which it 
suits His wisdom to introduce. To suppose that the course 
of nature obstructs the answer to any prayer which it is worth 
while to answer, is to give a false independence to nature and 
to exalt it above its instrumental position before God. 

While we are not required to think of the ordinary course 
of natural law as a perfectly fixed barrier, limiting the scope 
of divine answers to prayer, there is no occasion to deem such 
events as intrinsically out of harmony with the conception of 
law in general. The proper notion of law requires that where 
the conditions are modified the results should be modified. 
Prayer enters into the complex of a human life as a modifying 
condition, and ought accordingly to bring special results. It is 


254 GOD’S NATURE AND WORLD-RELATION. 


needless to add that it is only for genuine prayer that any 
salutary effect is claimed. Offered mechanically, or as a 
merit-winning performance, it becomes a poor counterfeit. In 
its true character it is the earnest, sincere, trustful approach 
of the child to the infinite Father. 


Se a a a 


Wart HEX. 


THE SUBJECTS OF GOD'S MORAL 
GOVERNMENT. 


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‘st Pe 


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Part LXX, 


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THE SUBJECTS OF GOD’S MORAL 
GOVERNMENT. 


CHAPTER I. 
ANGELS. 


I.— THE Point oF VIEW FROM WHICH TEE BIBLE DEALS 
WITH ANGELOLOGY. 


In treating of physical nature the Bible proceeds from the 
geocentric point of view. The heavens are not indeed ignored. 
The scriptural poets, like all men of poetic sensibility, had 
hearts deeply responsive to the scene of harmony and glory 
presented by the heavenly bodies. In voicing the language 
of worship and faith, to which that scene inspires, no writers 
have excelled the psalmists and prophets of Israel. Still, in 
the biblical view of physical nature, the earth is the great 
central theatre, and the heavenly bodies are regarded as tribu- 
tary in their office to its requirements. 

The same may be said of the biblical view of the rational 
creation. As a practical book, addressed to men, the Bible 
places man at the centre. Not ignoring, but rather clearly 
intimating, the existence of another order of rational beings, 
it treats of them only as they are tributary to the divine 


257 


258 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


economy in relation to men. In other words, it reveals no 
independent interest, or next to none, in angelology.! 

The comparison suggests an inquiry as to the proportion 
of the rational creation which is embraced in men. May it 
not be that a Bible written from another than the human 
standpoint would open up to us such views about the extent 
of the rational creation as modern astronomy gives us about 
the physical universe in its unspeakable transcendence of 
earthly dimensions? It would be over-dogmatic to reply with 
a decided yes, or a decided zo, to this question. The most 
that can be said is, that analogy favors the conclusion that the 
range of intelligent beings above and beyond men is of vast 
extent. In the subject of angelology revelation opens the 
door upon a region of indefinite bounds. We see the shining 
ranks in the foreground, but have no means of discovering how 
far back the celestial army extends. 


II.—- Main Facts RESPECTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
BiBpLicAL ANGELOLOGY. 


The theme of angelology being one that is rather enticing 
to the imagination, it might be expected that popular thought 
would outrun the data of revelation. That this was the case 
in Judaism is entirely certain. The Old Testament Apocrypha 
and later Jewish writings show the facility with which the re- 
ligious fancy enlarged upon this subject. 

While the canonical writers exhibit reticence and sobriety 
in comparison with those who came after them, it is antece- 
dently probable that on a theme like this, holding an incidental 

1 A due consideration of the anthropocentric point of view, characteristic of the 
Bible, will help to provide an answer to such an objection as Beyschlag brings 
against the supposition that angels are personal beings, namely, the purely instru- 
mental place assigned to them in the Scriptures. A book which limits its survey 


by constant reference to man and his destiny could not be expected to treat angels 
as ends in themselves, 


ANGELS. 259 


place in their discourse, they drew somewhat from the products 
of religious fancy and popular conception. No one certainly, 
who has passed beyond the simplicity of childhood, would 
dream that the ascription of wings to cherubim and seraphim by 
Ezekiel and Isaiah involves the fact that angelic beings have 
these appendages. With scarcely more reason is it to be sup- 
posed that we are in the region of literal fact when we read 
Daniel's representation of the connection of specific angels 
with specific nations.’ Items of this sort belong rather to the 
drapery of the subject than to its dogmatic substance. The 
latter, as will be illustrated presently, does not contain many 
particulars. 

Three or four periods may be distinguished in the progress 
of biblical angelology. In the period prior to the great pro- 
phetical era, or from Abraham to Amos, visitations of angels 
are recorded at intervals. Aside from the Jehovah-angel, who, 
in virtue of intimate association with a divine personality had 
an exceptional character, these messengers appear in common 
as agents of the Lord, temporarily commissioned, and distin- 
guished by no special titles or ranks.2~ Among the pre-exilian 
prophets there is no token of an advance upon this conception. 
These prophets seem, moreover, not to have given very much 
attention to the functions of angels. Mediation between God 
and Israel is represented as effected through the prophets 
without the intervention of heavenly beings. On the other 
hand, in the later group of prophets® angels are made con- 
spicuous as bearers of the divine message to the prophets them- 
selves, distinctions of rank are noticed, and in general there is 
an appearance of a more developed angelology. Contact with 
Persian thinking has been mentioned as affording an explana- 
tion of the difference. Some impulse may have been derived 
from that source, though it is entirely conceivable that by an 
interior development Jewish angelology might have been 


RR 


SPAN, ah 3520, eT, Ts 8 See especially Daniel and Zechariah. 
2 Joshua v. 13-15 is perhaps an exception. 


260 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


carried forward to the later phase.! The New Testament, if 
it does not multiply accounts of the visible appearances of 
angels, lays a foundation for an enlarged conception of their 
invisible agency. 


III.— Matrers More or Less CLEARLY REVEALED 
RESPECTING ANGELS. 


The points on which the Bible approaches in some measure 
to positive representations on the subject of angels may be 
specified as follows: — _ 

(1) In idea, and very largely in fact, they are holy and 
obedient servants of God.2_ (2) They have been on probation, 
as is evinced by the fall of some of them.’ It may be noticed 
that the distinct declaration, that some of the angels kept not 
their original condition and habitation, occurs only in 2 Peter 
and Jude, writings which belong to a secondary rank as 
regards the warrant for their canonical character. But as 
their statement is in line with the natural inference from a com- 
bination of scriptural and rational grounds, there is little rea- 
son to emphasize its singularity. (3) Angels are numerous.® 
(4) They are not possessed of gross bodies, if they have 


1 «The Jews,” says Stave, “did not, as respects their angelology, simply borrow 
outright the teachings of the Persians; they only allowed the development of their 
own teachings to be influenced from that source.” (Ueber den Einfluss des 
Parsismus auf das Judenthum, 1898, pp. 217, 218.) On the side of diabology, 
the same author credits to the Persian system a nearer approach to a direct con- 
tribution of content to Jewish teaching. 

2 Matt. xiii. 39, 41, xviii. 10, xxiv. 36, xxv. 31; Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 26, xii. 
8, 9. xv. 103 I Tim. v. 21. 

8 2 Pet. ii. 4; Jude 6. See also 1 Tim. iii. 6; Rev. xii. 4. 

* It is possible that the figurative passage in Revelation (xii. 4) which describes 
the dragon as sweeping a third part of the stars from heaven may have been 
designed to denote a fall of angels. However, a comparison with Dan. viii. 10 
cannot be regarded as favoring so large a significance. 

§ Matt. xxvi. 53; Heb. xii, 22. 


ANGELS. 261 


any bodies at all, and do not enter into connubial relations. 
(5) They exhibit distinctions of rank.? It is to be observed, 
however, that these distinctions are not given with much defin- 
iteness. Paul varies in his enumeration of the angelic ranks, 
and seems to have mentioned them only for the purpose of em- 
phasizing the truth that nothing is exempt from the headship 
of Christ. (6) They are not of a dignity which makes it in any 
wise warrantable to worship them, though in some points of 
view they are above men.’ Paul’s interrogatory, “Know ye 
not that ye shall judge angels ?’’* implies indeed a certain pre- 
eminence of the saints over angels, if it be concluded that his 
reference is to the holy, and not to the fallen class. Some 
eminent commentators adopt the former interpretation ; but 
certainly the way in which the evangelic narrative associ- 
ates good angels with the closing up of the dispensation is far 
from suggesting that in any real sense they are amenable to 
human judgment. The ministry of angels to men is of course, 
from the gospel standpoint, no valid evidence of their inferi- 
ority in station. (7) The antithesis which in general is set 
forth in the Scriptures between angels and men favors the 
conclusion that the two belong to different orders.® That 
the angel in the Apocalypse styles himself a fellow-servant 
with the evangelist and the prophets (xix. 10) in no wise con- 
tradicts this conclusion, the obvious intent of the declaration 
being to show that there is no such disparity between an 
angelic and a human witness to Christ as to make it proper 
that the former should be worshipped. The Swedenborgian 
view that angels are but deceased men lacks scriptural grounds. 
(8) Angels are engaged in contemplating the counsels of God, 
in adoration, and in accomplishing the behests of divine judg- 





1 Heb. i. 14; Mark xii. 25. 
21 Thess. iv. 16; Eph. i. 21, iii. 10; Col. 7. 16, ii. 10. 
8 Col. ii. 18; Rev. xix. 10; Heb. ii. 7; 2 Pet. ii. 11. 
4 1 Cor. vi. 3. 
5 Mark xii. 25; Luke xx. 36; Heb. ii. 7, 16. 

18 


262 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


ment and mercy among men.! It has sometimes been inferred, 
especially from Matt. xviii. 10 and Acts xii. 15, that a guardian 
angel is appointed to each human individual. But the former 
passage does not state that a special angel is made the guardian 
of each little child, and the latter records only a popular notion. 
The Scriptures afford no positive warrant for the assumption 
of so definite and detailed a scheme of guardianship. (9) 
Angels are under the headship of Christ, and through Him 
are united to redeemed men in a harmonious fellowship.” 


IV.— Points Open To SPECULATION. 


Among the points left open for speculation is the time when 
angels were created. Revelation affords no certain ground of 
inference here. The representation in the Book of Job, that 
the “sons of God”’ were already on hand when the foundations 
of the earth were laid,® may be literal truth ; but the statement 
occurs in a high strain of poetry, and is properly described 
as dramatic rather than dogmatic. It is, however, entirely 
credible. Supposing that other parts of the universe pre- 
sented a scene of divine glory before the earth was fitted up 
for man’s abode, it is reasonable to believe that sons of God 
were present to rejoice in that scene. 

Another speculative question is whether angels have any 
sort of bodies. This question was diversely answered in the 
patristic period. The majority of the scholastics decided that 
angels are pure spirits, and Roman Catholic theology has fol- 
lowed this verdict. But the basis for the verdict is exceedingly 
tenuous. If it be noted that the Scriptures speak of angels as 
spirits,* it may also be observed that they speak of a spiritual 
body,® and affirm, moreover, that the risen saints are to be as 





117 Pet.i. 12; Rev. v. 11, vii. 113 Ps. xci. 11, 12; Matt. xviii. 10; Luke xv. 
10, xvi. 22; Acts vii. 53; Heb. i. 14; Matt. xiii. 41, 42. 
21 Pet. iii. 22; Col.i.20. 8 Job xxxviii. 7. ‘* Heb.i.t4. 51 Cor. xv. 44. 


ANGELS. 263 


angels in heaven.’ The language of Scripture would need to 
be more definite to assure us that angels are absolutely devoid 
of corporeity. If philosophy has any assurance to offer on the 
subject, it has not yet fallen under our notice. 

Whether angels have bodies or not, they are to be regarded 
as subject to both space and time relations. The opposite has 
indeed been assumed. Thus Martensen affirms that angels 
are equally exempt from the conditions of space and time. ” 
But how can a finite being be exempt from the one or the 
other? Complete exemption from the limitations of space 
implies ability to act equally and at once upon every part of 
reality. Anything less than this must give rise to a distinc- 
tion of near and remote, or an experience of space limitation. 
Similarly complete exemption from time limitations implies 
capacity for an indivisible grasp of all reality. Without this 
there will be mental succession which is an experience of 
time limitations. Proper superiority to space and time rela- 
tions can be characteristic of nothing less than the Infinite 
Being. It is to be concluded, therefore, that freedom from 
space and time restrictions can be asserted of angels only in 
a qualified sense. They may, perchance, pass with incalcu- 
lable swiftness from one object to another, and are exempt 
from time in the sense that immortal youth is not subject to 
the marks of age which overtake mortals. 


V.— BIBLICAL TEACHING RESPECTING SATAN AND 
Evi, ANGELS. 


As among men there are reprobates, as well as the elect 
of God, so evil angels or devils are set over against good 
angels. The existence of the moral antithesis in the latter 
case is no more incredible than in the former. If any 








1 Mark xii. 25. 2 Dogmatik, § 68. 


264 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


peculiar difficulty attaches to the subject of evil angels, it 
belongs to their agency, and not to the fact of their exis- 
tence. It is appropriate to observe also that it is not easy, 
on the score of exegetical consistency, to rule out the exis- 
tence of evil angels, without at the same time bringing into 
question the reality and ministry of the order which bright- 
ens the field of religious vision. 

While the Old Testament introduces the theme of Satan 
and his working, it gives it a very scanty development. His 
name first appears in the Book of Job, and it cannot be said 
that the idea of his personality was sketched in any earlier 
canonical writings. A few vague references to uncanny 
creatures or sprites, reflecting popular fancies, may have 
been written previously ;1 but these were not adapted to 
prefigure the personality of Satan. 

In later thought the narrative of the temptation in Eden 
has been interpreted as referring to Satan; but the narrative 
itself conveys no definite hint that the writer supposed Satan 
to have figured in that scene, though it may be admitted that 
it is a little difficult to imagine that he should have construed 
the serpent in a baldly literal way. The connection of the 
arch enemy with the defection of Adam is not referred to in 
the canonical books of the Old Testament, and is not directly 
affirmed in the New Testament. The Book of Revelation, 
it is true, speaks of Satan as the ‘old serpent” ;? and in 
this there is a probable reference to the primal temptation, 
though it still stands in question whether the Revelator 
thought of the tempting serpent as Satan in disguise, and not 
simply as an apt symbol of the arch deceiver. In the apocry- 
phal Book of Wisdom we first meet the inference that the 
serpent was the instrument of Satan, it being said therein 
that man fell by the envy of the devil.® 














1 Isa, xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14; Lev. xvii. 7. 
2 Rev. xii. 9, xx. 2. See also John viii, 44; 2 Cor. xi. 3; Rom. xv. 20. 
$ Wisdom ii, 23-25. 


ANGELS. 265 


According to the common opinion of the early fathers an 
account of fallen angels is contained in Gen. vi. 2, 4, and 
Jewish interpreters of the same era seem to have found the 
like meaning in these verses.' Recent exegesis tends to 
confirm the primitive view, that the “sons of God” in the 
passage were intended to denote angels.* It is not clear, 
however, whether the biblical writer conceived of their mar- 
riage with the daughters of men as involving irretrievable 
apostasy and downfall. 

The Old Testament stands in contrast with the New in 
that it does not represent Satan as so sharply and distinctly 
the antagonist of God. In the Book of Job he appears as the 
insinuator against the righteous fidelity of God’s servant, 
the slanderous accuser. In the prophecy of Zechariah (iii. 1) 
he stands as the adversary of the cause of the Jewish theocracy 
impersonated in the high priest; and in 1 Chron. xxi. 1 he 
figures in a similar réle. These representations, of course, 
imply an unfriendly relation to divine purposes, but they do 
not picture the remorseless enemy of God who comes to view 
in the New Testament. Howis the contrast to be explained? 
Dorner supposes a deepening progress of Satan himself into 
the malignity and darkness of moral evil, and that the acme 


1 Book of Enoch vi., vii.; Book of Jubilees v.; Apocalypse of Baruch lvi. 

2 As specimens of the use of the phrase see Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7; Ps. xxix. 1. 
Ixxxix. 6; Dan. iii. 25. The later interpretation, which identifies the “sons of God” 
with the Sethites is justly criticised by Dillmann as follows: ‘‘ There is nothing in 
our text about a contrast between Sethite men and Cainite women. It is not 
hinted, either in chapter iv. or chapter v., that down to this time the Sethite list 
embraced only pious men, or that between the Sethites and the Cainites there was 
any barrier, the breaking down of which must draw after it a special judgment of 
God. The expression ‘sons of God” for pious men is as yet unusual in the Old 
Testament. Although starting from the idea of the divine sonship of Israel, the 
members of God’s people, especially the really pious among them, received the 
title in writing of an exalted character, it was not used of the pious generally, 
least of all in prose writing. It is impossible that in the apodosis, verse 2, BINM 
can mean anything else than in the protasis in verse 1. It is inconceivable how 
Nephalim should have sprung from connections between Sethite men and Cainite 
women.” (Genesis, 1, 234.) 


266 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


— the falling like lightning from heaven, as it is figuratively 
described ! — was precipitated by his antipathy to the mission 
of Christ.2 But while growth in wickedness may have been 
a fact, the progressive representation in Scripture on this sub- 
ject may be explained on the same principle which accounts 
for the like feature in relation to other themes. Whether 
Satan was full grown or not when the Book of Job was com- 
posed, biblical writers had then a narrower apprehension of 
the kingdom of evil than was gained later. 

New Testament language is indicative of a chieftainship in 
Satan over the kingdom of evil. Other evil angels are men- 
tioned as demons of whom he is prince,® or as his angels.* 
He is further described as the prince of this world,® and is 
even called the god of this world.6 Such statements are 
naturally suggestive of a certain preéminence of. Satan over 
the ranks of evil. But there is very slight demand for apply- 
ing to them the measuring rod of literal interpretation. How 
far spirits sold to evil are capable of an abiding unity and or- 
ganization properly stands in question. Moreover, the Scrip- 
tures may be regarded as using the word Satan, or devil, very 
largely in a collective or representative sense. That is at- 
tributed to him which is within the ability of the whole king- 
dom or aggregate of evil spirits to effect. His power and 
presence are those of a finite limited agent. As well attribute 
omnipresence to any angelic or human spirit as to suppose that 
Satan can act in person in all parts of the world at once. 

The definition of Satan as only a personification of the evil 
at work in men is not fully reconcilable with the tenor of the 
New Testament. Personification, doubtless, was quite con- 
genial to the religious custom of the age. The use of the 
word Mammon and, to some extent, also, that of Antichrist 
are examples. Still New Testament teaching relative to an 


1 Luke x. 18. 4 Matt. xxv. 41; Rev. xii. 7-9. 
2 System of Christian Doctrine, § 86. 5 John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. II. 
8 Matt. xii. 24-29. Compare Acts x. 38. 8 2 Cor. iv. 4. 


ANGELS. 267 


evil personality seems in various connections to reach beyond 
mere personification. It is difficult, for example, to interpret 
in that sense the reported words of Christ, which declare that 
the devil is the enemy who sowed tares in the field,! and 
that he stood not in the truth, being a liar and the father 
of lies.? 

Still less is there adequate ground for qualifying the per- 
sonality of Satan by assuming that he is a cosmic principle, 
which rises into consciousness only in free and intelligent 
beings who yield themselves to be its organs. A moral agent 
must always and everywhere be regarded as going before moral 
evil. It is wholly generated in such an agent. To place its 
root outside in an impersonal principle denies the goodness of 
the world as it came from the hand of God, and confuses the 
nature of moral evil by giving it something else than a proper 
ethical source. Very little, if anything, is effected by this 
theory to make the fact of moral evil less somber, and it rather 
enlarges than reduces the responsibility of the Creator in 
relation to its origin. 

The element in the working of Satan and evil spirits which 
is most perplexing to the modern reader is that which is cur- 
rently described as demoniacal possession. Had the Gospels 
spoken simply of temptations, or evil suggestions, as coming 
from this source, no very serious difficulty would have been 
involved, since, for aught we know, the like things are still 
included among actual occurrences. But we have numerous 
instances in which demons are said to inhabit men, and to be 
in them the source of mental and physical disorders. The 
reality of this inhabitation has been challenged on the ground 
that among civilized people in modern times, no like instances 
are presented ; and also on the ground that the symptoms of 
the demoniacs were in general those of lunatics. The former 
objection is qualified by the fact that no authentic diagnosis 


1 Matt. xiii. 39. 2 John viii. 44. 


268 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


of all cases of distempered persons tn civilized communities of 
modern times is within reach so as to assure us that no in- 
stances of possession have occurred within those limits. Some 
allowance may also be made to the thought that a special crisis 
in the spiritual kingdom may have evoked special manifestations. 
There belonged to that era, in the gift of tongues, a transient 
order of manifestations of the presence of the Divine Spirit. So 
analogously there may have been an extraordinary manifesta- 
tion of spiritual agency of the evil sort. The second objection 
is qualified by the considerations, that an overmastering diabolic 
influence might conceivably be the cause of acute mental and 
physical disorders, and that some things attributed to the 
demoniacs are not altogether explained by lunacy. How 
should crazed persons, above all other men, have been con- 
scious of the supernatural dignity of Christ ? 

While an answer may thus be rendered to these objections, 
a complete survey of New Testament facts still suggests the 
inquiry whether it is necessary to construe the stories of 
demon possession with strict literalness. Here two considera- 
tions in particular come into account. The first of these is 
found in the peculiarity of the Jewish religious dialect. As in 
its impassioned phrase God was often named as agent where 
we should not think of attributing the event to Him, so like- 
wise a freer reference was made to Satanic agency than suits 
our mode of speaking. A readiness to attribute physical evils 
to a supernatural source was part of the religious fashion of 
the country and the age. Evenamanof Paul’s mental vision 
could speak of a special bodily affliction as a messenger of 
Satan to buffet him. Naturally where the evils were of a 
strange and baffling nature there was a relatively strong incen- 
tive to predicate an evil supernaturalism as their source. The 
popular mind, it is conceivable, was led to express under the 
representation of possession its vivid sense of the working of 
a Satanic power in the subjects of peculiar and grievous ail- 
ments. As for the more thoughtful, while making a general 


ANGELS. 269 


connection of such events with a diabolic agent, and falling in 
with the current phraseology, they are not necessarily pre- 
sumed to have been tenacious of the specific notion of posses- 
sion. The other consideration supplements the foregoing, 
being found in the fact that a large part of the New Testa- 
ment makes no real account of demoniacal possession. All 
the recorded instances of the inhabitation of demons are in the 
Synoptical Gospels and the Book of Acts. In John’s Gospel 
there is no reference to facts of this order except in the mouth 
of Christ’s opponents. Satan is indeed said to have entered 
into Judas ; but this description is not to be taken in the sense 
of demoniacal possession, which acted as a disturbing cause in 
the sphere of self-consciousness, and besides seems more often 
to have been the misfortune of its subject that a penalty for 
special sinfulness. In the Johannine writings generally, in 
the Pauline Epistles, in fact in the whole body of New Testa- 
ment Epistles, there is no representation that gives any posi- 
tive support to the idea of possession proper. These writings 
stop with the general notion that evil spirits are agents of 
seduction and sources of harmful influence. There is thus a 
noticeable lack in the apostolic literature of any dogmatic in- 
terest in the specific conception of demoniacal possession. 

A combination of these two considerations — namely, the 
peculiarity of the religious dialect of the Jews, and the absence 
of all reference to possession proper in the more constructive 
portions of the New Testament —lends considerable color to 
the contention that it was beyond the design of Christ to pro- 
nounce definitely on the precise facts in the condition of the 
so-called demoniacs, that He dealt with the cases which He 
encountered like a practical physician, and accommodated 
Himself largely to the religious dialect of His age and country. 
A measure of accommodation in the matter is certainly not to 
be tabooed as incredible. It would be over-finical, for example, 
to say that Christ could not, following the demands of ordin- 
ary and simple language, have spoken as if the demon dwelt 


270 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


in the afflicted subject, though the indwelling were only by 
power or influence, analogous to that which a hypnotizer exer- 
cises over the hypnotized. On the other hand, it involves a 
very considerable assumption of knowledge to exclude posi- 
tively the notion of an evil spiritual agency, and to reduce to 
sheer accommodation Christ’s references to the matter. The 
confident assertion of this point of view we prefer to leave to 
those who have a measure of insight into facts and possibilities 
such as we are not yet conscious of possessing. 

In the New Testament picture the fate of Satan and his 
angels is not left doubtful. It is declared that everlasting fire 
is appointed to them, and that they are to be cast into the lake 
of fire and brimstone to be tormented for ever and ever.! No 
glimmer of restoration shines through these strong figures. 
Intrinsically, sinning angels may not be beyond recovery. 
There is no warrant for assuming that a redemptive economy 
nas no place in relation to them, All that is known to us is 
that Satan and the evil angels leagued with him appear in the 
New Testament at a stage where grace in their behalf is not 
contemplated. 


VI. — Tut Reason wuoy Gop TOLERATES THE AGENCY OF 
SATAN AND Evit ANGELS. 


The question which the Indian addressed to Eliot, “ Why 
does not God kill the devil?” solicits attention from other than 
untutored minds. The inquiry comes, why this age-long tol- 
eration of the adversary, the enemy, the mischief-maker? A 
complete answer is not easily discovered, as indeed it is not 
easy to find a complete answer to the question, why providence 
tolerates year after year the ruthless human being who makes 
a trade of overthrowing the weak and corrupting the innocent. 


Seed 





1 Matt, xxv. 41; Rev. xx. 10. 


ANGELS. 271 


But a partial answer may be found in the preéminence of 
moral methods in the divine estimate. To bind and over- 
master Satan by sheer force would not be the greatest victory. 
To carry weak mortals through the assaults of evil, to establish 
in them a righteous will which spurns the solicitations of the 
tempter, to lift them up to the estate of sons of God, and mar- 
shall them into a loyal army whose devotion shall for ever 
shame the apostate host, is the way to the incomparable 
triumph over Satan and his angels. Their manceuvrings are 
thus foiled. Out of this world, which they struggle to rule, 
rises the immortal kingdom which emphasizes their defeat. 
If any are made a prey to their wiles, it is because of their 
rejection of the sufficient grace.! Improvement of the open 
opportunity of divine fellowship, as it defends against moral 
harm from evil human agents, provides security against the 
adverse power of any agents that may have access to the sphere 
of man’s life. 

Of the general theme of the evil kingdom it may be said, 
that it belongs rather to the outer circle of religious theory 
and imagination than to the inner circle of practical interests. 
The sources out of which unholy impulses arise are quite be- 
yond the range of our perception. To explore, in this relation, 
what lies below or beyond consciousness is no part of the task 
of practical piety. The religious man fulfills his obligation 
when he endeavors to measure rightly the force of intruding 
evil, and strives to the best of his ability to encounter and de- 
feat it at the threshold of consciousness. Travelling earnestly 
in a Godward direction he is privileged to let the shadow ot 
the evil kingdom recede toward a far-off horizon. 





41 Cor. x. 13; James iv. 7. 


272 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


CHAPTER, IT. 
MEN. 


I.— Factors IN MAn’s BEING. 


Tue Bible contains doubtless much more of an anthropology 
than of an angelology. Nevertheless it treats of man from 
special points of view, and enters into an analysis of his nature 
only so far as is required by those points of view. It con- 
templates him as a subject of divine rule, and a candidate for 
a holy and blessed life, both in this world and in that which 
is to come. Revelation finds its province within these limits, 
and cannot be regarded as decisively controlling what is 
merely incidental thereto. In other words, the Bible by 
authority gives a certain core of anthropology, certain leading 
conceptions which are never lost sight of ; but admits, also, 
many representations which can be regarded as mere matters 
of national speech or personal thinking. 

A. different view has indeed been advocated by individual 
theologians. Detailed schemes of biblical psychology have 
been drawn out, as if the Bible afforded, and was meant to af- 
ford, a comprehensive and authoritative chart of human nature. 
Such schemes are interesting as specimens of industrious re- 
search. But they are not well adapted to secure confidence. 
They can be charged with an insufficient consideration of the 
variety which characterizes the biblical statements, and which 
is so much testimony that its psychological terms are not to 
be construed too rigorously. 

Take, for example, the Old Testament names for the higher 
component, or components, in man’s being, namely, soul, spirit, 


MEN. 273 


heart — nephesh, ruach, lebh. It is true that these terms are 
not exactly co-extensive in meaning. The first alone is used 
as a substitute for person ;? and the third has a more distinct 
association with moral character than the other two, and, singu- 
larly enough, is more often represented as the seat of thought 
or meditation. Still, to a very large extent the terms are em- 
ployed in equivalent senses, being used to denote any part of 
man’s supersensuous nature, emotional, intellectual, volitional, 
or moral.? A comparison of all the passages in which one or 
more of these words is used enforces this conclusion of 
Piepenbring: “We must admit that on this subject the 
authors of the Old Testament used popular language and not 
that of the schools ; that they spoke of the human soul, spirit 
and heart as we ourselves often speak of them, that is, includ- 
ing under each of these terms our entire spiritual being with 
all its faculties.” 4 

In the New Testament we find the corresponding Greek 
terms — Yryy, rvedpa, and xapdia-— used with much the same 
latitude and flexibility.° A principal distinction is that in the 
Pauline Epistles a certain primacy is given to the sprit. It 
is used prevailingly in preference to the term “soul,” in refer- 
ences to man’s higher nature. Ina prayer for the complete 
sanctification of disciples, body, soul, and spirit are mentioned 
as if they formed an ascending series. Moreover, the adjec- 


1 WE) M7 3 2 As in Gen. xii. 5, xvii. 14; Ezek. xviii. 4. 

* See, among other passages, Gen. xxvi. 35, xli. 8; Deut. ii. 30, iv. 29, vi. 5, xiii. 
3, xxvili, 65; Josh. ii. 11, xxiii. 14; Job xxvii. 2, xxxii. 8; Ps. vi. 3, xiii. 2, xxxii. 2, 
xxxiv. 18, xlii. 6, li. 10, 17, Ixxvii. 6, xcv. 10. ci. 5, Cxxxi. 2, cxlili. 4; Prov. xii. 25, 
xiv. IO, xx. 27, xxi. 4, xxviii. 25; Isa. xxvi. 8, 9, xxix. 24, lvii. 15, lxi. 10, Ixv. 143 
Jer. xv. 16; Ezek. xi. 19, xviii. 31, xxi. 7, xxxvi, 26. 

* Theology of the Old Testament, p. 165. 

S Matt. x. 28, xxii. 37, xxvi. 38; Luke ii. 35; Acts iv. 32; 1 Thess. v. 23; 
Heb. x. 38, 39; 1 Pet. i. 22, ii. 11; Mark viii. 12; Luke viii. 35; Acts xvii. 
16; Rom. viii. 4; 1 Cor. ii. 11, vii. 343; 2 Cor. ix. 7; Heb. iv. 12; Matt. v. 8, 
xi. 29, xii. 34, xv. 19, xviii. 35; Mark ii. 8, xvi. 14; Luke ii, 19, ix. 47, xxiv. 25, 
32; Rom. vi. 17, x. 10; 1 Cor. ii. 9; 1 John iii, 19-21. 

*; Thess. v. 23. 


274 THE SUB,£CTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


tive terms corresponding to soul and spirit are used antitheti- 
cally, to the disparagement of the former.! These facts give 
some plausibility to the supposition that Paul regarded soul and 
spirit as substantially distinguished, and thus represented tri- 
chotomy as opposed to dichotomy. But, on the other hand, it 
is to be noticed that the apostle did not always use the term 
soul in the restricted or disparaging sense,” and that in any case 
it cannot be maintained that he dogmatically inculcated tri- 
chotomy. If his language in a few instances seems to imply 
it, all that can be said is, that we have incidentally a glimpse 
of his personal philosophy. As for the New Testament at 
large, it renders no definite tribute to trichotomy. On the 
contrary, it uses the word soul in various connections as if it 
was understood to embrace the entire supersensuous nature 
of man.? In short, if it were to be contended that the Scrip- 
tures prescribe any theory, more could probably be said in 
favor of their teaching dichotomy than for the notion that 
they inculcate trichotomy. But the better conclusion is 
that they authoritatively teach neither the one nor the other. 
While the antithesis between the sensuous and the super- 
sensuous nature in man, between that which connects him 
with the physical world and that which connects him with God, 
is woven into its very texture, the Bible leaves open the 
question whether man is dual or triple in his essence. This 
question must be determined on rational grounds. 

Viewing the subject from this standpoint, we have no hesi- 
tation in pronouncing for dichotomy, as being commended by 
its greater simplicity and intelligibility. The contrast between 
matter and spirit is sharp and decisive. The terms which 
describe the one have no imaginable application to the other. 

1 Cor. xv. 44-46. 

2 Rom. ii. 9, xiii. 1; 2 Cor. i. 233 Eph. vi. 6; Col. iii, 23; Phil. i. 27. (See 
Greek text.) 

* 8 Matt. x, 28; Luke xii, 19, 20; Acts ii..27; Heb. x. 39; 1 Pet. i, 9, 22, ii. 


11; Rev. vi. 9, xx. 4. On the other hand, Heb. iv. 12 and Jude 19 can be 
quoted as apparently distinguishing between soul and spirit. 


MEN. 275 


It is impossible for us to figure any mean between them. It 
the soul, therefore, is made substantially distinct from the 
spirit, we can construe it only as a kind of subordinate spirit 
functionally intermediate between the body and the higher 
spirit. But what need of two grades of spirit in one person? 
How reconcile this duality with personal unity? The body 
does not compromise that unity, inasmuch as its place is 
purely instrumental. Shall it be said that the intermediate 
spirit or soul is purely instrumental to the higher? This 
seems to be necessary if personal unity is to be conserved. 
Two independent centres or springs of action imply a dual 
rather than a single consciousness. But what need of two 
instruments? If we cannot see how the spirit can make prac 
tical connection with the body, no more can we see how the 
soul, which must be viewed as equally immaterial, can make 
that connection. Whatever functions, then, are associated 
with the soul might just as well be associated with the spirit, 
or the latter be regarded as operative in them at first hand 
instead of at second hand. The intermediate substance is thus 
discredited as an apparent superfluity. 

If it be assumed that man is not sufficiently distinguished 
from the animal kingdom unless he is credited with an extra 
essence, a spirit in addition to a soul, the reply is that man 
does not need to be distinguished by a greater number of 
components, but by the higher grade of those which he does 
possess, At one end ef the scale the endowments of the 
same immaterial essence in man may be on a line with animal 
life, while at the other end they rise into the sphere of divine 
associations. 

It is worthy of note that while the Bible broadly distin- 
guishes between body and soul, or body and spirit, it indulges 
in no essential disparagement of the former. The ascetic 
theory, which assumes an intrinsic evil in the body, is alien 
from the scriptural standpoint. If the whole course of its 
teaching be taken into account, the Bible must be regarded 


276 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


as including in its ideal of man the union and reconciliation 
of nature and spirit. On no other supposition can a rational 
explanation be given of its doctrine of the resurrection. This 
doctrine is a seal upon the verdict in the creation narrative. 
It shows at least that, with regard to man’s body, God has not 
withdrawn the sentence of approbation which he is said to 
have pronounced upon His works. 

Something of an antithesis is indeed presented in the Old 
Testament between the body or flesh of man and divine reality. 
But it is the antithesis between feebleness and transitoriness, 
on the one hand, and might and stability on the other.! The 
Old Testament never employs the term “flesh” as antithetic 
to moral good. 

In the New Testament, it must be allowed, there is a verbal 
contrast between the flesh and moral good. This occurs 
mainly in the writings of Paul. All instances, outside of his 
epistles, of an apparent disparagement of the flesh are very 
easily explained. But Paul’s usage seems to afford some pre- 
text for an ascetic theory. He employs such strong expres- 
sions as these: “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh 
(odpé), dwelleth no good thing.’ ? “I delight in the law of 
God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my 
members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing 
me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my mem- 
bers.”® «The mind of the flesh is enmity against God ; for 
it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” 4 
“The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the 
flesh ; for these are contrary the one to the other.’”’® What 
did Paul mean by these sentences? That he did not mean to 
condemn man’s sensuous nature as in itself sinful is abundantly 
apparent. It appears from the fact that he thought of the 
Christ, who knew no sin, as truly assuming human flesh.° It 


1 Job xxxiv. 15; Ps. lvi. 4; Ixxviii. 39; Isa. xl. 6; Jer. xvii. 5. 
2 Rom. vii. 18. 3 Rom. vii. 22, 23. 4 Rom. viii. 7. 6 Gal Way, 
® Gal, iv. 4; Rom. i. 3, v. 15; 1 Cor. xv. 21. 


MEN. 277 


appears from his belief in the resurrection, or the continuance 
of the embodied life. It appears unmistakably in his repre- 
sentations that the body is properly a temple of the Holy 
Spirit, an acceptable offering to God through consecrated 
service, an instrument of righteousness.! It appears finally 
in the description of those who have experienced the emanci- 
pating power of divine grace through Christ as being no longer 
in the flesh? — a description which demonstrates that by the 
“flesh,” when used in antithesis to moral goodness, Paul did 
not mean the sensuous nature fev se, since, in that event, one 
could be out of the flesh only by being out of the body. 

The conclusion necessarily follows, that in the Pauline doc- 
trine of sin capé has a larger meaning than the ordinary sense 
of the term. It epitomizes the whole earthward and sinful 
tendency which is characteristic of man in his fallen condition, 
and which finds in the bodily members the means at once of 
gratification and manifestation. It is not that the flesh is 
in itself sinful, but that it provides channels through which 
worldly appetencies and intemperate desires assert themselves, 
thus serving as an ever-ready ally of the soul on the side of 
its thirst for pleasure and selfish gratification, and in this way 
hindering the rule of moral judgment and righteous purpose. 
As the instrument and ally of the soul on that side of its 
tendencies, it stands in antithesis to the Divine Spirit in 
its alliance with the soul on the side of holy endeavor ; and 
also in antithesis with the human spirit, in so far as it is viewed 
as immediately connected with the Divine Spirit and receptive 
of His renewing energy. Thus Paul’s teaching cannot be re- 
garded as breaking through the view of the body which 1s in 
general characteristic of the Bible. That he had small appre- 
ciation for any monastic scheme is clearly indicated by his 
‘nstruction to the Colossians.® 


tr Cor. vi. 13, 15, 19; Rom. vi. 13, 19, xii. I. 
2 Rom. vii. 5, 6, viii. 4, 9. 
3 Col. ii. 20-23. 

19 


278 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


II. — QuESTION OF EXEMPTION FROM BopiLy DEATH. 


In respect of his body man must be pronounced naturally 
mortal. The possibility of death was given in his original 
constitution. Made, like the countless generations of animals 
which preceded him, of material that is subject to corruption 
and dissolution, he had in his corporeal frame no security 
against mortality. On the plane of nature the fact that he 
was made of dust was a bond for his return to the dust. 

It is true that the Scriptures represent man’s death as the 
penalty or consequence of sin. It is also true that in scrip- 
tural phraseology death is made inclusive of physical dissolu- 
tion. This sense is indeed transcended in various connections. 
By a figure of speech grievous damage to the soul is described 
as death. But in this extension of the meaning of the term 
there is no denial of the view that physical death falls under 
the category of penalty or consequence of sin. Paul evidently 
gave it this association.2, As for the author of the narrative 
in the first part of Genesis, it is altogether probable that he 
had no distinct thought of anything else than physical decay 
and dissolution when he wrote of the death affixed to the 
eating of the forbidden fruit. 

To reconcile the truth of the natural mortality of the body 
with the scriptural conception of death as a penalty, it is 
necessary to suppose that the divine plan for man included 
some counteracting agency which should effectively offset all 
death-working influences. Human philosophy, if it cannot 
assert the fact of such a provision, cannot deny it. Surely we 
are not under rational compulsion to believe that God could 
not bring his children to their proper goal except through the 
gateway of corruption and death. If the embodied life be; 
longs to the ideal of man, the painful severance of soul and 
body seems strangely off the road to that ideal, unless intro- 





1 Gen. ii. 17; Rom. v. 12-14, vi. 23; 1 Cor. xv. 22. 
9 Cor. xv. 20-22. 


MEN. 279 


duced as a stern means of discipline for a sinful subject. 
Accordingly, from any other standpoint than that of sheer 
naturalism, it is not incredible that some divine provision would 
have saved man, in the event of his holy obedience, from the 
ordeal of death, or at least excluded that ordeal from the cate- 
gory of an inevitable experience, In the primitive thought of 
Israel this expedient took the form of a tree of life accessible 
to the unfallen Adam. ‘Translated from the language of con- 
crete, poetic description into that of philosophy, this beautiful 
image may stand for the divine efficiency which would have 
been mediated to the human spirit, in its continued com- 
munion with God, and, through the human spirit thus vitalized, 
would have raised man’s sensuous nature, without the experi- 
ence of any painful disruption, to the state of the glorified life. 
No dogmatic authority is of course claimed for this description 
of what God’s method would have been; it is simply an ad- 
missible supposition respecting what lies hid in the divine 
counsels. 


III. — QuEsTION OF THE Sout’s IMMORTALITY. 


If we pass from the consideration of the body to that of the 
soul, we are not so obviously in the presence of mortality, but 
we still have occasion to inquire for our authority to affirm 
man’s natural immortality. Rational considerations can, it is 
true, be urged in behalf of the conviction that the soul was 
designed for endless existence. Not a few have supposed 
that this conviction can properly be sustained by a reference 
to the simplicity of the soul’s essence. Since it is not com- 
pounded, the argument runs, it cannot be subject to dissolution, 
and consequently there is no occasion to imagine the cessation 
of its being. The trouble with this argument is the implicit 
deism which lies at its basis. There is a tacit assumption that 
the circle of created things, having once been constituted, is 


280 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


left to take its own course everlastingly. On this assumption, 
the soul, as meeting no cause that is competent to cancel its be- 
ing, must of course be everlasting. But deny this assumption, 
declare the constant dependence of all created things upon the 
will and power of God, and the argument from the simple es- 
sence of the soul is shorn of its value. It imports very little 
to be assured that there is nothing in all nature which can put 
a stop to the soul’s being, when we see that the title to con- 
tinued existence rests wholly in the God who can be thought 
of as annihilating as well as creating, of ceasing to conserve 
as well as continuing to conserve. 

A rational ground much more worthy to be alleged for faith 
in the soul’s immortality is obtained in reviewing the range of 
its power and capacities. This subtle intellect which makes 
its pathway among the stars, this sense of righteousness which 
is capable of rising to such lofty heights, this royalty of a will- 
power which can defy all pressure that is brought to bear, this 
immeasurable capability of sympathy and affection — does it 
not show that man’s soul has connections with the infinite, 
that it was formed for an immortal career? The argument is 
legitimate, and must have force with one who does not live 
habitually in a vile pessimistic mood. However, its limitations 
are not to be overlooked. It is a good argument for the im- 
mortality of some souls, namely of all who are in a way to 
realize their better possibilities. But suppose the contrary, 
souls with extinguished possibilities for good, a blot and a 
nuisance upon the face of the universe. Evidently in relation 
to such souls it is vain to appeal to man’s noble capacities as 
a guarantee of endless existence. Unceasing opportunity for 
growth in goodness is something worthy of the Divine Sov- 
ereign to bestow. That He should deem it fitting to grant 
unceasing Opportunity for growth or confirmation in badness 
is not capable of proof on rational grounds. 

Much the same limitation applies to the argument from the 
religious consciousness. A settled and luminous sense of a 


MEN. 281 


filial relation to God is indeed the most vital of all grounds of 
a subjective assurance of immortality. Out of this ground the 
inference rises spontaneously, that He who has infinite fullness 
of life in Himself will not consign to corruption and nothing- 
ness those whom He owns in the tender relation of children. 
If children, then hetrs — heirs of an incorruptible inheritance 
—jisaform of argument which only expresses a clear demand 
of the religious sentiment. But it evidently provides no certi- 
fication respecting those who have forsaken the path of 
spiritual sonship and gravitated into incorrigible rebellion 
against God. 

As the matter depends upon the plan of the divine adminis- 
tration, and there is no rational demonstration that in that 
administration all souls receive the dower of an inalienable 
existence, we can be asssured by nothing else than a divine 
revelation that immortality is the lot of all men indiscrimin- 
ately. The question whether revelation has pronounced de- 
cisively on this point is best considered in connection with the 
theme of future retribution. But it may be noticed here that 
the Bible practically treats of man as a candidate for a limitless 
future. In the Old Testament, it is true, this point is not 
brought to the front. Only an occasional glimpse is given of 
a vital existence beyond the grave,! as opposed to the shade- 
like existence in Sheo/ which was commonly recognized in 
popular thought from the age of the patriarchs. Doubtless, 
in some of the fundamental conceptions of the Old Testa- 
ment, relative to God and man, an excellent ground was pro- 
vided for an inculcation of the thought of an immortal life.? 





1 As more or less indicative of the better hope the following texts may be 
noted: Deut. xxxii. 39; 1 Sam. ii. 6; Job xiv. 13-15, xix. 25-27; Hos. vi. 2; 
Ps, xvi. 10, xlix. 15, xxiii. 24-26; Isa. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19, lili, 9, 10; Dan. xii. 2. 

2 “The earnest of a living hope was contained in the belief in a living God. 
The potency of a personal immortality was deposited in the faith in a personal 
God. The promise of a moral future lay in the recognition of the moral action of 
a righteous God in the present.” Kindred potentialities lay in the Old Testament 
doctrine of man, “ the way in which and the end for which he was created. The 


282 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


In fact, however, it was only in the rarest instances that the 
development reached the level of a distinct declaration of belief, 
as distinguished from the language of simple premonition, the 
utterance of a hope projected beyond the ordinary creed by 
the motive-power of deep experiences. Reasons for this re- 
serve may be found in the national and preliminary character 
of the Jewish religion. So far as that religion had to do with 
the training and mission of a nation it gave little occasion to 
speak of the future life ; for nations belong only to the earthly 
theatre. Being antecedent to the coming of the Messiah, its 
forecast of the future naturally was associated very largely 
with the setting up of His kingdom. It would have involved 
a disjunction of religion from its true historic ground to have 
dwelt much upon the region of immortality before the advent 
and resurrection of Christ. The risen Lord must first be 
presented to the faith of men before the picture of the in- 
corruptible life, in all the breadth and reach of its inspiring 
significance, could consistently be sketched. The apostles 
enjoyed a plane of vision such as had been vouchsafed to no 
preceding oracles of revelation. It was but natural, therefore, 
that in their writings the horizon should be set aglow, as never 
before, by the vivid hope and expectation with which the im- 
mortal life was grasped. 

Immortality, whether viewed as conditional or unconditional, 
is evidently an item of vast significance in estimating the 
dignity of the human soul. It makes all the difference be- 
God, receiving his existence by God’s free and immediate act, made like Him, and 
so constituted a free, personal being, distinct in origin and end from the beasts 
that perish. ... It was the operation of these two great doctrines of revelation, as 
they were applied to the consciousness of Israel, as they came in contact with the 
popular, inherited notions of the future, as they were fortified by the personal ex- 
periences of pious men, and as they were confirmed in course of time by the posi- 
tive teachings of the prophets, that enlarged and illumined the Old Testament view 
of an after-life. In this way the truth that was latent was brought to view, and 


was carried forward from stage to stage, until it became a permanent contribution 
to man’s hope.” (Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, pp. 216, 221.) 


MEN. 283 


tween vanity and priceless value whether its life is to run its 
course in a few days, or whether it is to go on for ever in an 
ascending pathway. 


IV. — THEORIES AS TO THE ORIGIN oF SOULS. 


It has sometimes been thought that human souls have a 
history prior to their embodied life in this world, as well 
as subsequent thereto. Origen, borrowing from Platonism, 
adopted this notion. But it has had a very scanty following 
among Christian writers. Not the slightest warrant for assum- 
ing the preéxistence of souls can be found in the Scriptures. 
No doubt in later Judaism the notion of preéxistence had 
considerable currency. It is found in the Book of Wisdom,! 
in the writings of Philo,? and in the Talmud.* Language that 
looks like an out-cropping of the same notion appears in a 
single instance in the New Testament, namely, in the question 
propounded to Christ, whether, in case of the man born blind, 
his own sin or that of his parents was the ground of the ap- 
parent judgment against him.‘ But this incidental manifesta- 
tion of what may have been in the minds of the questioners 
lends, of course, no proper sanction to the doctrine of preéxis- 
tence. That no scriptural sentence can be cited for it is 
acknowledged by the most notable of recent theological advo- 
cates of preéxistence. Speaking of the doctrine in question 
Julius Miiller says: “ Any unprejudiced examination of Holy 
Scripture must satisfy us that it says nothing about it, and 
that no allegorizing expositions of Scripture, or rather impo- 
sitions, can afford a clue to it.”® He accepts it because he 
regards it as a necessary datum in explaining the facts of in- 
born sinfulness. In our view Miiller exaggerates the facts, 


1 Wisdom viii. 19, 20. 4 John ix. 1. 
2 Confusion of Languages, xvii. § Christian Doctrine of Sin, II. 360. 
8 Weber, Jiidische Theologie, p. 212. . 


284 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


and, therefore, magnifies overmuch the demand for an explana- 
tion. But supposing the facts to be in serious need of ex- 
planation, it is rather questionable to assume a preéxistence of 
souls about which revelation is utterly silent, and conscious- 
ness knows nothing, and critical investigation cannot discover 
anything. If souls had such a decisive moral development in 
a previous state as the theory implies, it is reasonable to 
assume that they had also an appreciable intellectual develop- 
ment. Why then is no sign of that development to be found 
in the embodied subject? Why is the infant so utterly destitute 
of every trace of intellectual maturity, and obliged to gain 
every item of knowledge by the hard road of tuition and trial ? 
The fact that the soul develops intellectually as if it first had 
its being along with its embodiment certainly does not favor 
the theory of preéxistence. In fine there is very little to 
recommend it, and probably the great majority of Christian 
writers will continue to repudiate it as a fanciful speculation. 

Rejecting preéxistence, we are left with two rival theories 
as respects the origin of human souls in general, namely, 
traducianism and creationism, or the theory of derivation 
from parents and that of divine creation in each instance. 
The references of the Scriptures cannot be regarded as 
amounting to a certain choice of the one or the other. The 
description of God as the Father of the spirits of all men, in 
contrast with earthly parents as the fathers of their flesh,! 
seems indeed to imply creationism. Nothing equally favorable 
to traducianism can be cited. Still a traducianist can urge 
that the term “father’’ is used with much latitude in Scrip- 
ture, and in this relation may denote, not so much that God is 
directly the author of human spirits, as that in the realization 
of His affectionate relation to men He operates through 
spiritual rather than through corporeal means, and is appre- 
hended by the spirit rather than by the bodily senses. The 


1 Heb. xii. 9. Compare Zech. xii. 1; Isa. xlii. 5; Job xxxiii. 4; Eccl. xii. 7. 


MEN. 285 


sentence in John’s Gospel (ili. 6), which is sometimes quoted 
in favor of traducianism, determines nothing, one way or the 
other. It simply puts in contrast the state of man under the 
rule of fleshly appetites, which are matter of common inheri- 
tance through natural birth, and his state as supernaturally 
renewed by the Holy Spirit. 

In the line of rational evidences each of the two theories 
has its deficit. The trying task for creationism is the explana- 
tion of heredity. The great stumbling-block for traducianism 
is its affinity with materialism, since it cannot be apprehended 
how the soul can come from the parents unless it is of sepa- 
rable divisible substance, whereas its spiritual nature requires 
it to be thought of as an indivisible unity, to which the idea 
of partition is utterly foreign. This is so serious an objection 
that the preference must be given to creationism if any 
tolerable explanation can be offered on its basis for heredity. 
As a matter of fact, a partial, if not a complete explanation, 
is afforded. The bodily organization of the child takes an 
impress from that of the parents through natural connection. 
In the early stages of the soul’s development, before the era 
of reflection and self-control, this organization determines 
almost wholly the content of psychical experience. Parental 
characteristics have also an opportunity to transmit them- 
selves through the intimate connection of the mother with 
the child during the embryonic period. The emotional tides 
which send their vibrations through her organism penetrate 
the sensitive being of the embryo. Not infrequently some 
marked bent or disposition of the offspring may be referred 
to a powerful emotional crisis in the mother. Thus physical 
connections with the parents, though they be not competent 
to determine directly the characteristics of the soul, do power- 
fully condition its experiences in its most plastic period, and 
these experiences are elements in shaping the personality, 
morally and intellectually, toward the type which it reaches. 
This explanation may not be entirely adequate, but it goes no 


286 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


little way toward covering the facts which need to be accounted 
for, and so helps to legitimate the preference for creationism. 

To some minds this theory is objectionable as supposing 
direct and specific operations of divine efficiency within the 
world. But the objection has no weight from the standpoint 
of Christian supernaturalism, or of a stanch theory of the 
divine immanence. If it is in the plan of God to regenerate 
souls under certain spiritual conditions, it is entirely conceiv- 
able that it may be in His plan to create them under certain 
physical conditions. This does not imply that He demeans 
Himself to wait on human appetencies. It signifies simply 
that He has adopted and continues to execute the world- 
scheme, or race scheme, which is, on the whole, most eligible 
in the sight of His wisdom. 

Somewhat of a tendency has been manifested among recent 
theologians to combine creationism and traducianism, the sup- 
position being that in the origination of souls God's creative 
energy works together with the parental agency, and makes of 
the latter something more than a mere occasion of its own 
operation. This would be an effective method of meeting 
all the requirements of the problem, if only the combination 
could be satisfactorily construed. But that is by no means 
certain. To create a free rational person seems to be among 
the highest acts of omnipotence. What real contribution a 
limited agent like man can make to such an act, aside from 
providing the mere occasion, is not easily conceived. Never- 
theless, if traducianism is to be held at all, there is an intelli 
gible motive for taking it in a modified sense. Modern phil- 
osophical thinking tends to a strong emphasis upon the divine 
immanence. To a considerable extent, it inclines to the iden- 
tification of matter with a divine energizing. Now if materia) 
atoms are to be thought of as subsisting only by the direct 
agency of God, it seems a strange piece of philosophical pro- 
cedure to exclude the direct agency of God from the origina 
tion of souls. Clearly, the advocate of an exclusive traducian 


MEN. 287 


theory needs to consider well whether he is rendering a just 
tribute to the demands of a stanch conception of divine im- 
manence and creaturely dependence. 

The Scriptures assume that on the side of physical consti- 
tution mankind has proceeded from a single human pair. It is 
essentially one the world over.! Science in its most recent 
phases has no objection to offer to this conception. From the 
standpoint of evolution diversities of race are obviously no 
objection to unity of origin. If nature is capable of such vast 
mutations as are implied in the doctrine that all the higher 
forms of life may be traced back to preceding lower forms, 
it could involve no strain upon her resources to produce such 
variations as are exemplified in the different races of men. 
Moreover, the chasm between man and his supposed animal 
antecedents is so vast that discreet scientists, naturally, are not 
disposed to imagine that the leap across it could have been 
made except under the most select conditions. But, whether 
the utmost that evolutionary science claims be credited or not, 
there is scientifically no objection to the theory of the common 
origin of men. In view of the diversities which have been 
wrought by artificial selection in different species of animals, 
within a narrow space of time, it is not at all difficult to be- 
lieve that the operation of special causes through long ages 
has given rise to all existing race peculiarities. 

The question of the antiquity of the human race is one upon 
which Christian dogmatics has very little occasion to render a 
verdict. The conclusion being once reached that the Old 
Testament does not afford a basis for an exact chronology, 
either as admitting breaks into its genealogical lists, or as in- 
corporating conjectural or legendary elements into its account 
of the primitive era, there is absolutely no motive for retrench- 
ing the period of human history to a particular figure. It 
would be saying too much, perhaps, to affirm that this con- 





1 Gen. i., ti.; Acts xvii. 26; Rom. v. 12, 18, 


288 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


clusion has been commonly accepted by biblical scholars and 
historians ; but it is true that it has commanded increasing 
assent among careful students during the-last few decades. 
Keasons for pushing back the traditionary date are found, in 
the first place, in the discoveries of archeology. Eminent 
investigators conclude that the beginnings of civilized com- 
munities in Babylonia cannot be dated later than 4,000 B.C., 
and that an equal antiquity must be claimed for the commence- 
ment of Egyptian civilization! In the second place, the re- 
sults of geological research suggest a necessary extension of 
the term of human history. Corroboration has, indeed, been 
lacking for the enormous period assumed by Lyell and some 
others ; but it is still true that experts in geology are inclined 
to regard ten thousand years as a very moderate period for 
man’s past sojourn upon the earth, and to a considerable extent 
prefer to lengthen the time to twenty-five, fifty, or even one 
hundred thousand years.” 


7 
© 


— 


1 Says Morris Jastrow: “Our present knowledge of Babylonian history reaches 
back to the period of about 4,000 B.C. At that time we find the Euphrates valley 
divided into a series of states or principalities parcelling north and south Baby- 
lonia between them.” (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 1898, p. 35. 
Compare Fritz Hommel, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, 1895, pp. 166, 
167, 282, 283; Francois Lenormant, The Beginnings of History, translated from 
the second French edition, 1883, pp. 250, 251; A. H. Sayce, The Ancient Em- 
pires of the East, 1884, pp. 14, 116; W. M. F. Petrie, History of Egypt from the 
Earliest Times to the XVI Dynasty, 1899, pp. 27-31, 252, 253; Heinrich Brugsch, 
Die gyptologie, 1891, p. 473; Mariette cited by Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne 
del’Orient, IT. 33-35 ; R. W. Rogers, Hist. of Babylonia and Assyria, I. 336, 349ft. 

2 The weight of authority seems to be in favor of man’s appearance in Glacial 
or Interglacial time. The estimate by years is confessedly uncertain. Joseph Le 
Conte says; ‘We may say that we have as yet no certain knowledge of man’s time 
on the earth, unless we adopt Croll’s theory of the Glacial climate. It may be 
one hundred thousand years, or it may be only ten thousand years.” (Elements of 
Geology, 1891, p.619.) Joseph Prestwich, after premising that the Glacial epoch, 
or the period of extreme cold, may have lasted no longer than from fifteen thou- 
sand to twenty-five thousand years, and that the Post-glacial period, or the time 
occupied in the melting of the ice, may have covered from eight thousand to ten 
thousand years, adds: “ This might give to palzolithic man, if we can be allowed 
to form a rough approximate limit, on data yet insufficient and subject to correc- 


MEN. 289 


V. — CONSCIENCE. 


The principal constituents which belong to man as a moral 
personality were necessarily touched upon in the first themes 
to which we gave our attention. On account of their eviden- 
tial or philosophical value, they could not be ignored in an ex- 
amination of the grounds of rational certainty or of theistic 
belief. But, as some additional points of view are pertinent 
to the present connection, it will not be a needless repetition 
to glance at man’s furnishing on the side of the moral sense, 
or conscience, of freedom, and of religious disposition. 

Conscience, if the term be taken in its broader meaning, is 
inclusive of three different elements: a perception of moral 
distinctions, a sense of obligation to the right, as opposed to 
the wrong, and a feeling of self-approbation or self-condemna- 
tion according as the act corresponds to the judgment of right 
and wrong. The first is undoubtedly subject to limitations. 
A man is not born an infallible moralist any more than he is 
born an infallible mathematician. But as he is implicitly a 
mathematician at birth, being endowed with a mental consti- 
tution which is intrinsically suited to recognize the relations 
of numbers, so he is implicitly a moralist at birth, being pos- 
sessed of a moral constitution suited to recognize moral rela- 
tion, no greater antiquity than perhaps about twenty thousand to thirty thousand 
years; while, should he be restricted to the so-called Post-glacial period, his an- 
tiquity need not go further back than ten thousand to fifteen thousand years before 
the time of neolithic man.” As to neolithic man, Prestwich says: ‘“ In Europe we 
are unable to carry back his presence beyond a period of from two thousand to 
three thousand years B.C. But already in Egypt and parts of Asia it is proved 
that civilized communities and large states flourished before 4,000 B.C. Civilized 
man must, therefore, have had a far higher antiquity in those countries, and probably 
in southern Asia, than those four thousand to five thousand years.” (Geology, 
Chemical, Physical, and Stratiographical, 1888, II. 534, 535.) Professor William 
North Rice, after noting the large element of uncertainty which belongs to any 
numerical estimate of man’s antiquity that may be made in the present, says: “I 
should say that the date of the origin of man was probably considerably more than 


ten thousand years ago, but either less than, or not much more than one hundred 
thousand years ago.” (Letter to the author, March 22, 1899.) 


290 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


tions. The facts of his moral experience cannot be construed 
rationally on the supposition that he starts as a ¢abula rasa in 
respect of his moral being, any more than his intellectual ex- 
perience can be construed without a reference to positive 
mental constituents. Grant that perversities of moral judg- 
ment often occur, and that education manifestly has a function 
to perform in relation to the moral sense, an original dower in 
the direction of true moral perception is not thereby denied. 
Were there no such dower there would be no adequate basis 
for a consensus of moral judgments. But there evidently is 
such a basis. Men cannot develop normally, or come into 
largeness and fullness of ethical life, without realizing an 
essential community of ethical principles through no incon- 
siderable range. Indeed there can be no development or even 
existence of moral personality without the presence, explicit 
or virtual, of a certain order of moral judgments. He who 
could not see that the good will, as opposed to the evil 
or malicious will, is obligatory, or that kindness ought to be 
repaid by gratitude rather than by hatred, would be described 
by common consent as utterly out of the plane of normal 
manhood. Still further, he who should deny the obligation 
to govern his own conduct by such rules as he deems fitting 
for men generally, or binding upon them, would be accounted 
as lacking an essential of a proper human nature. Now, a 
moral perception that inevitably appears with the moral per- 
sonality, or inevitably is realized in the course of its normal 
development, has just one adequate explanation. It is founded 
in man’s moral constitution. To derive it from any order of 
external circumstances is to impute the greater to the less. 
It is not the product of social relations, but founds society. 
Without a certain community of moral perceptions society 
would lack all true cohesion, and would rest upon a meagre 
artificial basis. Society has no other authority than that of 
an aggregate of individual wills. If these wills are individually 
destitute of the guidance of certain moral perceptions, their 


MEN. 291 


aggregation gives no trustworthy law of conduct. The addi- 
tion of nothing to nothing, however far it may be carried, 
results in nothing. Society, as a moral community, can be 
constituted only out of units that have a common moral con- 
stituent. That it does not make the morality of the individual, 
but has its moral character in its members, is clearly enough 
seen in the fact that, occasionally, a small company of earnest 
men, or even a single individual of exceptional character and 
gifts, will successfully challenge society on some special point 
and start the public current toward an improved moral per- 
ception. 

Doubtless it is easy to exaggerate the compass of the original 
dower of which we are speaking. Moral vision is not wide at 
the beginning of the moral life. Experience and training have 
an important function in expanding and clarifying perceptions 
of duty. But these facts are in perfect harmony with the 
supposition of an original moral constitution which provides 
for certain standard moral judgments, in such sense that they 
are certain to be realized in any life that would not commonly 
be pronounced abnormal and monstrous. 

The second element in conscience has a still clearer title 
to be regarded as founded in man’s moral constitution. A per- 
son may hesitate in his judgments of right and wrong, and 
may make mistakes in these judgments. But he is ever 
certain of the fact that there is a right and a wrong, and of 
his obligation to follow the one to the rejection of the other; 
and he cannot put aside this conviction without ceasing to be 
human. The conviction too is s#z generis. Any attempt to 
translate it into something else is sure to disfigure rather 
than to interpret. It is not, for example, another name for 
desire and aversion founded on contrasted experiences of the 
pleasurable and the painful. Doubtless there is an under- 
lying faith in every healthy spirit that righteousness cannot be 
permanently divorced from blessédness, and an opposite con- 
viction would tend to confusion and lassitude. But that by 


292 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


no means involves the conclusion that a man’s personal bear- 
ing toward right and wrong is simply his bearing toward that 
which is esteemed pleasurable or painful. It implies only 
that one outlook is more inspiring than another, more compe- 
tent to beget a hearty appreciation of the constituted order of 
the universe, and so better suited to sustain a high sense of 
duty.! That men can put considerations of pleasure and pain 
very distinctly into the background, in abeyance to the sense 
of obligation, is too well attested by facts to yield to any eccen- 
tric theory of morals. To regard anticipated pleasure as the 
sole spring of action savors of intolerable cynicism in the face 
of the ample record of self-sacrifice, of deliberate choice of the 
harder among honorable ways of life for the sake of rendering 
a greater service, and of persevering devotement to the good 
of those affording little or no return of thankfulness and ap- 
preciation. The common judgment of men repudiates such 
cynicism, and human speech has embodied this judgment in 
the whole list of words which put righteous conviction and 
generous devotion in contrast with self-seeking. Both the 
facts of conduct and the facts of language emphasize the con- 
clusion that a distinctive character belongs to the sense of 
obligation, and that it is armed with a mighty and sacred 
power. 

The third element in conscience falls below neither of the 
others in its attestation of man’s moral vocation. Whence 
comes this swift sentence which breaks through all sophistical 
excuses, and reveals a man to himself as condemned, as often 


1 «Tt is not happiness in any banal sense that the ethical consciousness claims 
as the wages of well-doing. It sets up no demand that all its acts of self-restraint or 
self-sacrifice shall be recompensed by doles of happiness, — as if, says Spinoza, men 
expected to be decorated by God with high rewards for their virtue and their best 
actions, as for having endured the direst slavery. What the ethical consciousness 
does demand is rather to feel the universe behind it, to know that we are living in 
a moral cosmos, where our efforts avail somewhat, and where virtue may have the 
wages of going on and not to die.” (Andrew Seth, Two Lectures on Theism, 
pp. 28, 29.) 


MEN. #* 293 


as he does despite to any ethical principle which he recognizes 
when in a dispassionate frame of mind? It is the offspring of 
a nature that is intrinsically moral. It expresses the reaction 
of that nature against whatever does violence to its require- 
ments. It is the constitutional in the individual opposing the 
element of personal caprice. And the length to which this 
reaction and opposition are often carried is of striking signifi- 
cance. Offense after offense is rebuked by a bitter sense of 
ill-desert. The moral nature thus interposes by virtue of its 
constitution a barrier against abuse. But as the body gradu- 
ally loses its vitality and power of reaction against repeated 
abuse, so the moral constitution cannot be perpetually defied 
and ill-treated without incurring a fatal loss of vigor. The 
perverse habit of will and the corresponding desires and 
emotions grow dominant with continued indulgence, and leave 
little scope for the healthy emotions which spring up spon- 
taneously in the unperverted nature. 

In the light of the foregoing exposition we may determine 
in what sense the conscience can be called the voice of God. 
Clearly it is not such in a baldly literal sense. The elements 
of contingency which enter into it make this evident. Still 
it is no mistake to regard it as being in an important sense the 
bearer of a divine message. It profoundly emphasizes the truth 
that man is the subject of a moral order, and that this order, 
is too basal to rest in aught but the supreme reality —in God. 
In its normal development it brings man more and more toward 
the plane of the divine thought and feeling in respect of moral 
distinctions. From the standpoint of the Christian doctrine 
of grace, it may be regarded as touched and vitalized in all its 
elements by the Divine Spirit. 

In the Scriptures the most explicit teaching on the general 
subject of the conscience is contained in Paul's Epistle to the 
Romans.!_ The apostle evidently conceived that the data of a 





1 Rom. i. 18-23, ti. 14-15. 
20 


294 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


true moral code are contained in the nature of man, and only 
need to be interpreted without passion and perversity to direct 
him Godward. 


VI. — FREEDOM. 


In proportion as the facts of conscience exhibit man as a 
responsible moral agent they attest his freedom. For freedom 
is an indispensable condition of responsible agency. And by 
freedom in this connection is understood preéminently a faculty 
of alternativity, a capability of varied choices or varied acts of 
self-determination under given conditions. To use the ordi- 
nary theological phrase, the power of contrary choice is a 
necessary endowment of man as a free responsible being. 
Something else may belong to the complete notion of freedom ; 
but this much comes inevitably to the front, as often as man 
is viewed in his responsibility, or as a subject of merit and 
demerit. 

The proofs are very simple and intelligible. In the first 
place, it is the spontaneous impression of men that they have 
a veritable power of self-direction. Any man unembarrassed 
by the entanglements of speculation no more doubts his ability 
to vary his conduct in numerous details than he disbelieves 
in his own existence. ‘Tell him that in all the different acts of 
his daily life he was invincibly determined, or could not have 
done differently under the given conditions, and out of the full- 
ness of his honest conviction he will respond that he knows 
better. 

In the second place it is the dictate of logic and common 
sense that a man cannot be counted responsible for a result 
when he has no power to vary his act. Responsibility be- 
longs to an agent and not to an instrument. No one ever 
thinks of passing sentence on a knife or revolver as an accom- 
plice in a homicide. Nor could he do so with any reason if 
the knife er revolver were supposed to be conscious, so long 


MEN. 295 


as it should be regarded as devoid of all power of self-motion. 
Consciousness would be no more of an element in its responsi- 
bility than the quality of its metal, if in the crime it was simply 
and only an instrument. Now aman who is completely deter- 
mined in his acts is an instrument, and not an agent proper. 
It makes no difference whether the efficient source of the de- 
termination is exterior or interior, so long as it is not freely 
posited by the person in question. If the nature bestowed 
upon him determines him to a particular act, excluding every 
alternative, then he is not the agent inthat act. Heisamere 
instrument, the real agent being the bestower of his nature. 
To charge responsibility upon the person thus determined 
would involve precisely the same absurdity as to make the 
knife or revolver a guilty accomplice in a homicide, or to con- 
demn a clock for striking at a point where its dynamics exclude 
every other alternative. 

In the third place, the facts of deliberation speak for the 
reality of freedom as defined. To defer the decision on a 
special point for the sake of further reflection is to make a pre- 
liminary decision. Just so long as the case is purposely kept 
open there is a choice against precipitating the ultimate choice. 
Now what is to be said of these intermediate choices, this 
balancing of reasons, this suspending of a decision of the main 
question? On the necessitarian theory, every step is strictly 
determined, and the whole process of deliberation becomes an 
illusion. It is not a name for self-directed reflection, but for 
certain determined motions viewed as antecedent to another 
and more conspicuous determined motion, The automaton 
indulges in some whirring and rattling before it executes its 
proper feat. 

Once more, freedom in the sense of alternativity is a needed 
postulate in justifying the distinction between truth and error. 
It was noticed, in criticism of materialism and pantheism,} 


1 Part I. Chap. IT. Sect. V., VI. 


296 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


that the thoroughgoing determinism, which pertains to either 
of these systems, undermines the idea that there is any valid 
standard of truth. A like result can be charged against any 
comprehensive scheme of determinism. Unless there is real 
contingency in the universe, one set of judgments or opinions 
is just as much the outcome of the nature of things as another. 
Nothing being properly referable to the personal autonomy of 
the creature — to his caprice, his unethical haste, his self- 
induced blindness — all his errors must be regarded as founded 
in the will or character of the First Great Cause. But to im- 
pute contradictions in thought to the same source is to cancel 
the ground of intellectual confidence in that source. 

The most that determinism has to say against the concep- 
tion which these arguments sustain may be embraced in two 
or three specifications. It is alleged, in the first place, that 
freedom, in the sense of a power of contrary choice, is contra- 
dictory to the principle of causality. If in the presence of two 
or more alternatives the human agent can select one as well as 
another, then there is no cause for his choice; an event tran- 
spires when he chooses, which is without a cause. The 
trouble with this argument is that it ignores the distinction 
between an agent and an intermediate or instrumental cause, 
and so rules out the idea of creation in favor of an all-embrac- 
ing, necessitated evolution. If the principle of causality ex- 
cludes veritable option between alternatives, then God never 
exercised any option, creation proper cannot be imputed to 
Him, and a perfectly inexorable law of necessary evolution 
governs every divine purpose and every putting forth of divine 
energy. On the other hand, if there is option with God, if 
the making of the world was not simply a necessitated evolu- 
tion of His power, then the principle of causality does not, as 
a matter of fact, exclude the power of contrary choice. Exist- 
ing in the Supreme Being, the like power may conceivably 
exist in other beings. Man may share with his Maker the 
prerogative of creating out of nothing, originating, not indeed 


MEN. 297 


objective beings, but subjective determinations. As Ulrici 
says: ‘‘ Every pure self-movement is at bottom a creating out 
of nothing.” ! This representation does not invalidate the 
principle of causality, but limits it as it must be limited in view 
of the intrinsic prerogatives of free personality. <A free per- 
sonality is not merely an intermediate cause, or medium of 
transmitting efficiency. It has in itself the unique power 
of absolute origination. Unlike anything in the sphere of im- 
personal nature, it is a true agent, capable of acting beyond 
the measure in which it is acted upon. In virtue of its power 
of absolute origination it is a pluri-potential cause, or capable of 
varying its action under given conditions.” 

The creative function, or power of absolute origination, as 
just predicated of free personality, gives the needed answer to 
the Edwardean puzzle. In repudiating the self-determination 
of the will, Edwards argued, if the will freely determines itself 
to a particular act, it must be by a choice. But this choice is 
an act, and the self-determination of the will to this act must 
also be by a choice, and so on to infinity. This argument 
assumes that a volition must have a determining antecedent 
which is either voluntary or involuntary. It thus puts out of 
sight the creative function inherent in free personality. For 
an act of creation or absolute origination no determining ante- 
cedents, whether voluntary or involuntary, are to be imagined. 
To suppose such is to throw back the idea of creation or to 
rule it out altogether. Of course free personality may deter- 





1 Gott und die Natur, p. 626. 

2 Mystery doubtless attaches to a power of this kind; but the free will must be 
taken to be what the total facts of man’s nature and experience demand. Only 
mischief and confusion result when the attempt is made to force it under a foreign 
category and to exact an impossible explanation. “Every determination of a free 
will must,” says Lotze, “as respects its origin, be inexplicable, for to explain 
means nothing else than to show that a particular event follows from its antece- 
dents in accordance with universal laws. The incomprehensibility of the free de- 
termination is therefore no obstacle to accepting it, but a consequence of its 
proper idea.”? (Grundziige der praktischen Philosophie 2te aufl. p. 29.) 


298 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


mine in the light of reasons, but that is quite different from 
being strictly determined. 

The last remark brings us to another argument of the 
determinist or necessitarian. Unless the acts of a person, he 
urges, are determined by his reason and his feelings they are 
irrational and characterless. To this it is to be replied that 
it is utterly impossible to establish for every act the proba- 
bility of a distinct motive, whether in the reason or the 
feelings. On the contrary, a large number of acts have the 
appearance of falling under the category of the purely arbi- 
trary. A person determines, for example, to take a walk for 
the sake of exercise. This is his sole conscious motive. 
Now the exercise will be equally gained in walking in any one 
of a number of directions. Will it be impossible for him to 
move his limbs unless he discovers a motive for preferring one 
of the several directions ? The common sense and the con- 
sciousness of men repudiate the notion, and assert a power of 
arbitrary choice in such a case, and inathousand kindred 
ones. There being then a power of arbitrary choice, the 
only question concerns its scope. It is indeed easy to say 
that it is confined entirely to trivial matters, and so deserves 
no serious account. But a judicial mind will hesitate to slur 
over the element of arbitrariness in this way, and for two 
reasons. In the first place great moral transitions are some- 
times rapidly consummated. There seems to be such a thing 
as a baleful freak, a sudden plunge from the good into the 
evil, a choice of a sane subject which yet is so contradictory 
of his foregoing record as to look like suicidal madness. In 
the second place, and more especially, it is to be noted that a 
slight turn in a moral career may be of great ultimate sig- 
nificance. Suppose that a man is not likely to act in revo- 
lutionary contrast with his character or his habitual ways of 
thought and feeling; if there is in his will-power a certain 
margin of arbitrariness, this may be used as an entering 
wedge to initiate a change of moral course. It may place 


MEN. 299 


him to-morrow in a somewhat better or a somewhat worse 
position than that which he occupies to-day. By advance in 
the one or the other direction he may meet allies of the good 
or the evil in his character, which shall help to still further 
divergence from his original status. Thus transitions are 
seen to be provided for, though a large scope be allowed to 
the conditioning force of character, or the motives which 
spring out of inward states. On the supposition of a margin 
of arbitrariness, both the constant, or relatively constant, and 
the variable in moral experience are explained. The one is 
due to the conditioning force of the antecedent character or 
states of feeling. The other is due to the fact that this con- 
ditioning force is not absolute, but is qualified by a margin of 
arbitrariness. The union of the two accounts far better for 
the actual phenomena of conduct, to say nothing about secur- 
ing an intelligible basis of responsibility, than does the oppos- 
ing theory of a strict determining force in the antecedent 
dispositions or states of mind. While the average moral 
career may indicate that the will is likely to follow the direc- 
tion of the character, it indicates also that the will has power, 
within limits, to modify character by making alliance with the 
better or the worse among the mixed impulses which pertain 
to all men in their formative stage. It should be noticed also, 
that to condition conduct absolutely on antecedent character 
embarrasses the conception of the possibility of the apostasy 
of a holy being. Determinists confront here a fact which 
contradicts their premises, unless perchance they have the 
hardihood to affirm that the divine will, as a more efficient 
source of determination than any finite character, was back of 
the primal apostasy. 

In sustaining his case the determinist has of course to 
make a show of securing responsibility. And this he 
achieves by the dogmatic assertion that a man is responsible 
for his character and everything which it dictates, apart from 
all question of its origin. This was the ground taken by 


300 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


Jonathan Edwards. Charles Hodge has repeated it in the 
most unqualified form. He denies that a man can be held 
responsible only for his voluntary acts and their subjective 
effects. “The moral character of dispositions or habits,’’ 
he says, “depends on their nature and not on their origin. 
... Whether concreated, innate, infused or  self-acquired, 
they are good or bad according to their nature.”’! This 
maxim, he thinks, is in accord with the universal judgment 
of men. But is it not rather in unmistakable opposition 
to the dictates of sober and judicial reflection? Doubtless 
there is a general tendency to judge men according to their 
actual dispositions. For example, when we see a man under 
an over-mastering passion for strong drink we are likely to 
believe that, to a greater or less extent, he has invited the 
encroachments of the enslaving appetite through lack of such 
resistance as he might have summoned forth, or through an 
indulgence which he might have avoided. If the contrary 
could be proved, if it could be shown that the appetite in all 
its strength and all the completeness of its mastery was 
purely a matter of inheritance, it would be a sin against 
reason and charity to charge it against its subject as a ground 
of moral reprobation. No unbiased jury in the world would 
hold a man blameworthy for that in which it is certain that 
he had no more choice than in the natural color of his hair. 
It is only by reason of the equivocal sense in which the terms 
good and _ bad can be used that the bald statement of Hodge 
has any shade of plausibility. The terms have one meaning 
in «esthetic judgments and another in proper moral judg- 
ments. The ferocious disposition of a wild beast may be 
esthetically unpleasing, but we have yet to learn that it 
renders the beast morally reprehensible. So a man dom- 
inated by a ferocious disposition, which in its full extent was 
concreated or infused, would be esthetically unpleasing, and 


Tm ee ee 


1 Systematic Theology, Pt. II. Chap. V. §6. 





MEN. 301 


society, in the interest of its own safety, might be authorized 
to put him under restraint ; but to sentence him as morally 
blameworthy would be a cruel injustice. It may be said in- 
deed that a man stands on a different footing from that of a 
beast because of the attribute of reason. But what element 
of responsibility can come from a faculty of reason which is 
under the complete determination of a concreated disposition, 
and has no means of escaping that determination? Reason 
can make no difference in responsibility, save as it is joined 
with a veritable power of self-direction. As wholly subser- 
vient to a concreated disposition, it would be rather an instru- 
ment of the Creator than a factor in a true agent. 

Thus far we have considered freedom as a condition of 
responsible agency. In this sense it involves the power of 
contrary choice, and is often described as formal freedom. 
But freedom may be regarded from another point of view. 
It may be taken as significant of untrammeled life in the 
spirit, the relative exemption from barriers which belongs to 
him whose will is fused into oneness with the divine will. 
Viewed in this light it has been termed veal freedom. Nat- 
urally the Bible, as the book of salvation, has quite as much 
to say about freedom in the latter sense as in the former. 
Indeed, more explicit references to real freedom can be cited 
than to formal. But the latter enters into the groundwork 
of the biblical system of thought, being assumed where it is 
not definitely asserted.! 

The conception of real freedom emphasizes the truth that 
the rebellious soul is certain to be balked in its ambitions and 
cramped in its life, that there is no getting rid of such tremen- 
dous facts as God and His moral order, and that the soul must 


e fee 


John v. 40, vi. 68; Acts vii. 51; 1Cor. x. 12; Heb. iii, 8. The principle of real 
freedom is contained in the following passages: Matt. vil. 17-20, xii. 33: John 
viii. 32. 36; Gal. vi. 7,8; Jamesi. 25, ii. 12; 1 John ili, 9; Prov. v. 22; Isa. 
lvii. 20, 21. 


302 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


be adjusted to these facts if it is to gain the pathway of a 
blessed and unhindered progress. It assures us that the more 
perfect is a man’s love of the true and the exalted, the greater 
his delight in holiness, the more readily and intelligently he 
can despise all that sin has to offer, the further has he escaped 
from all liability to bonds and shackles. 

In their mutual relations formal freedom is to be déemed 
the prius of real freedom. The power of choice is given to 
man that he may use it to make or to confirm his character. 
If in the ultimate result of his choices character gains fixity, 
or powerfully conditions the determinations of the will, this is 
what he himself has elected and helped to work out. It con- 
tinues, therefore, to stand to his credit or discredit, and does 
not cancel his position as a responsible agent. 

That great fixity of character may be achieved is not to be 
questioned. But it is not so clear that there is a philosophical 
warrant for assuming that adsolute fixity may be gained by a 
creature. Immutability isa divine name. Anything less than 
absolute holiness and wisdom seems to make something less 
than an absolute barrier against a sinful choice. Still, by con- 
tinued advance in holiness and intelligence, a finite spirit may 
evidently gain such an immense height above the solicitations 
and impulses of sin, that a descent to their level becomes prac- 
tically incredible. That a corresponding fixity in unholiness 
may be reached will not be doubted by one who duly weighs 
the force of the downward gravitation which is the most terrible 
factor in the punishment of sin. 

The essentials in a definition of freedom have been given 
in the above discussion. But a word may be added in the 
interest of a clear conception of the relation of freedom to 
power or ability. In the sense in which it has been used, 
it manifestly is closely associated with the idea of power. It 
is descriptive of man as a true agent, in opposition to writing 
him down as a mere instrument. But a true agent is a power, 
a source of efficiency, a veritable cause. In describing such 


MEN. 303 


an agent, therefore, freedom expresses not merely the negative 
notion of exemption from one thing or another, but the positive 
notion of power, and above all the power of self-determination 
or self-direction. 

We have spoken rather of the freedom of maz, taken in 
the character which belongs to him as a responsible agent, 
than of the freedom of the wz//. There is, however, no objec- 
tion to the latter phrase, so long as a separation in man’s 
indivisible psychical nature is not imagined, and the will is re- 
garded as simply a name for the soul in a particular order of 
power and function. 


VII. — ORIGINAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


While freedom imports that man must be a real factor in 
making or confirming his character, it by no means implies 
that elements of character may not be given him in his origi- 
nal outfit. All that has been urged in favor of referring the 
facts of conscience to constitutional endowments is just so 
much evidence of an incipient moral character by the gift of 
creation. In like manner, as has been argued,! the facts 
of religion imply that the specifically religious element in man 
—his bent to recognize the supernatural as something upon 
which he depends fundamentally — is his constitutionally, or by 
gift of creation. This conclusion harmonizes with the strength 
and universality of the religious sentiment, and is certainly 
quite as conceivable as the fact of regeneration. If the opera- 
tion of divine grace can displace an existing bent in a man by 
a new tendency, there is very little reason to doubt that crea- 
tive efficiency can plant in man’s nature, at the outset, specific 
tendencies of a moral and religious kind. 

The sum of these tendencies, thus conceived as given in 





1 Part I. Chap. II. Sect. VII. 


304 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


creation, 1s theologically described as original righteousness. 
In the thought of the scholastics, original righteousness, or 
its more eminent part, the disposition to recognize and love 
God, was construed as something given apart from and subse- 
quent to creation. This doctrine of a donum superadditum 
was properly repudiated by the Reformers as making what 
belongs to the very idea of the normal man a supplement or 
attachment. 

Though the conception of original righteousness is a valid 
one, it needs to be guarded against exaggeration. The germ 
is not to be magnified to the proportions which belong to the 
mature development. From the days of Augustine a descrip- 
tion of the unfallen Adam has been largely current, in which 
he is represented as possessed of the most princely attributes 
of wisdom and positive holiness.! Such a picture was formed 
wholly from the colors of the speculative imagination. No 
biblical foundation for it can be discovered. Genesis sketches 
an innocent man, but not by any means a prince in knowledge 
or righteousness. Nowhere in the subsequent books is Adam 
held up as a model toward which human aspiration should 
reach. In no degree is he made to rival the function of 
Christ in this respect. Paul, on the contrary, seems to have 
conceived that the Adam, who had not yet firmly established 
the supremacy of the spirit over the sensuous life, stood on 
an essentially lower plane than that of Christ, so that the 
latter is taken in opposition to the former as the type of the 
spiritual man.? 


1 Dr. South’s declaration that ‘Adam came into the world a philosopher,” and 
that “ Aristotle was only the rubbish of an Adam,” is but the more rhetorical ex- 
pression of an opinion that many distinguished theologians have entertained. 

2 3 Cor. xv. 45, 46. 


MEN. 305 


VIII.— GROUNDS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF APOSTASY. 


The conception of original righteousness, as involving only 
initial or immature character, and the conception of freedom, 
as implying a margin of arbitrariness, together furnish such 
explanation as can be offered of the fact of apostasy. Of 
course where arbitrariness is in any degree a real factor, a 
specific explanation of any particular act, or the rendering of 
a definite and complete account of its genesis, is not possible. 
To explain in this sense a deed of sin is to explain it away, in- 
asmuch as the explanation is compassed by bringing the deed 
under the category of a necessary causation, and that which 
springs necessarily from its antecedents has not the proper 
character of sin, at least where there was no option as to the 
antecedents. In other words, all sin which is properly charge- 
able as such has an element of caprice, and a specific explana- 
tion of this or that instance of caprice is plainly out of question. 
This leaves us with the conclusion that in regard to the expla- 
nation of the entrance of sin only general grounds of its possi- 
bility can be stated. From this point of view we may see how 
much can properly be conceded to various theories that have 
been broached. 

The Leibnitzian theory, which refers sin to creaturely limi- 
tations, contains doubtless an element of truth. <A limited in- 
experienced being has, in himself, no perfect safeguard against 
moral lapse. The end which in an adequate outlook appears 
as one and indivisible is liable to be broken up in his apprehen- 
sion. In dwelling upon blessedness he may lose sight in some 
measure of its necessary foundation in goodness, and thus an 
inordinate attention to that which is perfectly legitimate may 
become to him a source of temptation. He is also subject to 
surprises. A new turn in experience is likely to awaken a 
vivid emotion, and this to impel to action before the dissuasives, 
which would be apparent to a larger and quicker intelligence, 
have come to view. Ina word, the fragmentary contemplation 


306 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


of reality incidental to a limited being gives scope to a one- 
sided pressure of motives, and so generates a liability to swerve 
from the normal course. It is to be noted, however, that it is 
nothing more than the /zadz/zty to a trespass that is accounted 
for in this way. The doctrine of creaturely limitations is 
pushed entirely beyond its legitimate domain when it is sup- 
posed to account for the fact of sin, and not merely to assist 
the conception of its possibility. Limitations afford a positive 
explanation of the fact of sin only as they contain a ground 
of its necessity; but, as has been said, strict necessity which 
was not created in the use of personal autonomy cancels the 
notion of sin. Moreover, if creaturely limitations of them- 
selves necessitate the fact of sin, it must be concluded that 
continuous adherence to righteousness is out of question for a 
finite agent. 

The same. order of remarks applies to the theory which 
explains sin by reference to man’s sensuous nature. No one 
can deny that the cravings which spring out of bodily neces- 
sities, and the manifold impressions from the outer world of 
which the body is the medium, are powerful factors in shaping 
thought and volition. Their opportunity, too, for mastery is 
much enhanced by their presence at the very beginning of 
the development of the individual. Before the intellect has 
made any noticeable progress, or any habit of conscious self- 
control has been formed, the bodily needs and impressions 
operate with a domineering and ceaseless energy. Thus the 
rational nature is put at a disadvantage over against the 
animal propensities. It must meet a pressure from the side 
of the bodily life that easily becomes an occasion of perverse 
indulgence. But, on the other hand, it speaks for a possible 
sovereignty of the rational nature, that mature life exhibits 
numerous instances both of a better and of a worse control 
of appetite than is in general characteristic of childhood. 
This fact as much as testifies that a power of self-education 
as well as the pressure of the sensuous nature, is often back 


MEN. 307 


of sin. There is also a strong objection to the theory of the 
sensuous origin of sin in the fact that various kinds of sinful 
dispositions, such as pride, envy, and selfish ambition, have 
no perceptible connection with the sensuous nature, and can 
just as well be thought to pertain to unembodied spirits as to 
composite beings like men. Still further, it is to be observed 
that an overplus of the sensuous nature reduces, on examina- 
tion, to a deficit of the spirit. Since the body has no power 
of self-motion, to predicate an overplus of the bodily propen- 
sities is just the same as affirming that the spirit is not so 
well furnished in its higher faculties as to be qualified for 
efficient rule over the impulses which belong to it through 
connection with the body. The theory under review, there- 
fore, comes back to the principle of the foregoing, and 
explains sin on the ground of creaturely limitations, its dis- 
tinctive feature being that it emphasizes a limitation or deficit 
in the moral subject over against the sensuous nature. Of 
course, like the more general theory of which it is a variety, it 
explains rather the lability to sin than any specific act of sin. 

These are the principal theories of which account needs to 
be taken. The attempt to found sin in the divine ordering 
is a melancholy aberration that deserves mention only for the 
sake of repudiation. To place the will of God back of sin is 
either to deny its sinfulness or to impeach the ethical nature 
of God. It also abases revelation to an instrumentality of the 
pedagogics of deceit. If sin was part and parcel of the world- 
scheme as planned and ordered in the mind of God, then the 
Scriptures, in thundering against it and portraying it as the ab- 
horrent enemy of God and spoiler of men, fulfill an insincere 
and theatrical réle! The conclusion must be that in God’s 
sight sin is relly useful, but that it is important to have men 





1 The general attfude of the Scriptures toward sin is plainly one of deep hos- 
tility. It must be admitted, however, that Rom. xi. 32, judged by verbal appear- 
ance, might not suggest such an attitude. But it is to be noticed that the apostle 
here was contemplating men who as respects interior character were alreaay 


308 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


think in all practical moods entirely otherwise. They must, 
forsooth, get into an unbiblical and speculative frame of mind 
before it will answer for them to have insight into the actual 
fact. Theistic writers who have gotten into this frame have 
taken one of two lines in their exposition of God’s design in 
connection with sin. Some, making the manifestation of the 
divine character the ruling interest, have argued that sin was 
decreed in order that love and justice might be displayed in 
opposite ways of dealing with the undeserving. This argu- 
ment has claimed the suffrage of some eminent representa- 
tives of theology in the Reformed Church; but it is impos- 
sible to concede to it any virtue. On its basis neither love nor 
justice can properly be regarded as coming to manifestation ; 
both are put out of sight in favor of arbitrary will. A being 
who turns the universe into a showcase, and elects men, inde- 
pendently of their deserts, to infinitely contrasted destinies, is, 
in essence, arbitrary will, and neither love nor justice. Others, 
making human development the ruling interest, have advocated 
the more plausible theory that an experience of sin is a neces- 
sary incident in man’s training, and on this account has a cer- 
tain place in God’s design. There is no strength or fullness 
of life, it is contended, apart from an experience of contrasts. 
A man must make his way through the antithesis of good and 
evil in order truly and deeply to know either the one or the 
other, and without this knowledge he lacks energy as being 
destitute of the most powerful moral incentives. It is true 
that sin may pass to that excess which is harmful to the in- 
dividual ; but even in such a case there is a compensation, 
partly in the warning example which is given, and partly in 
the effort and struggle which are devolved upon society for 


sinners. In his view it was expedient that such should be met by commands and 
prohibitions, which, as challenging their real bent, would naturally provoke to 
transgressions or, in a manner, shut them up to disobedience. Only thus would 
they be likely to come to the self-knowledge necessary to humble them and make 
them fit to receive the divine mercy. 


MEN. 309 


the elimination or correction of what it regards as an evil. 
Serving thus as a necessary, though often a bitter tonic, sin, 
as a temporary experience of moral agents in process of 
training, may be regarded as an instrument of divine tuition. 
So the apology runs. Satan could hardly be interested to 
invent a more clever argument for the promotion of his 
special enterprise. Still, it is not clever enough to be im- 
pervious to criticism. It affronts the moral sense, which 
knows sin as that which does not admit of apology. It puts 
God in the odious light of taking evil into His plan for the 
sake of good, whereas the ordinary ethical code of men con- 
demns those who do evil that good may come. It is guilty 
of exaggerated stress upon the developing power of sinful 
experience, and overlooks the blighting, maiming, enslaving 
tendencies of that experience. The example of Christ ought 
to teach us that one can grow to manly stature without the help 
of an experience of sin. Moral growth may indeed be for- 
warded by effort ; but the effort is fruitful in proportion as it 
takes the normal course and works out obedience to the moral 
standard. He who steadily holds himself true to that stan- 
dard advances in moral strength and grows toward the like- 
ness of God’s immutable goodness. Defection from the 
standard insinuates, on the contrary, an element of weakness 
and paralysis into the moral nature as respects its nobler 
capabilities. | Not an experience of sin, but an experience of 
unceasing vigilance against it, and of unceasing devotion to 
its opposite, 1s what a moral agent needs for his develop- 
ment. The most that can be said in behalf of sin as a means 
of development lies in the fact that to a certain extent one 
form of sin may be used to antagonize another. For example, 
when a man’s interior defection from righteousness is covered 
up by pride and self-conceit some specific transgression may 
bring humiliation and consciousness of existing depravity. 
Sin may thus in a measure counteract sin. But, as opposed 


to holy obedience, sin is ever harm and waste. If it be said 
21 


310 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


that but for sin there would have been no cross of an atoning 
Saviour, it must be answered that the race ought to be 
ashamed to all eternity for having made the cross necessary 
by its miserable apostasy. The love which came to expression 
in the cross was always in God, and moral beings by keep- 
ing to the pathway of a perfect righteousness would have 
advanced swiftly to a perception of its infinite depth and 
tenderness without the aid of the actual cross. To suppose 
otherwise is to discredit the gospel ane that heart purity 
is a means of spiritual vision. 

In closing the paragraph a word may be awarded to one or r two 
side questions respecting the nature of sin. A point that has 
given rise to much discussion concerns the propriety of defin- 
ing sin as negation or privation. Origen, many of the fathers, 
and the scholastics generally were in favor of this definition, 
conceiving that, like darkness and cold, sin is essentially a lack 
rather than anything positive. Of course, as opposed to sub- 
stance, sin is but accident. It ranks as an accidental property 
of a free moral agent, being predicable not only of his perverse 
acts but also of their subjective effects in his nature. But it 
is not so clear that it can properly be described as mere priva- 
tion. So far from suggesting that it springs universally from 
lassitude of spirit, it is often associated with a powerful self- 
assertion. A frightful energy in wickedness is something 
which history teaches us to rate among possibilities. In every 
such case sin does not appear as a mere lack of a holy will, or 
a relaxing of the hold upon the good; it appears rather as a 
full-orbed will-power wrongly directed, and so includes a posi- 
tive aspect. 

Another question concerns the warrant for regarding sel4sh- 
ness the ruling principle in all sin. Not a little can be said 
for the affirmative. The Scriptures sum up all obligation in 
the law of love.! But selfishness, or a perverse self-assertion, 





1 Matt. xxii. 37-40; Rom. xiii. 10; 1 Cor. xiii. 


MEN. 311 


is the opposite of love. It would seem, therefore, that all viola- 
tions of obligation have at their core the principle of selfishness. 
Observation, however, assures us that instances of idolatrous 
devotion, or great self-abandon in behalf of another, are pos- 
sible, and that the very greatness of the self-abandon may 
seem to be an occasion of a trespass in the form of neglect of 
divine claims. It may be noticed also that it seems to be pos- 
sible to trespass against an obligation of rational self-love by 
an undue despair and precipitate casting away of self. In 
either of these instances it may be possible to detect an ele- 
ment of self-assertion. But in connection with either instance 
likewise the question may be raised whether the ruling temper 
corresponds to what, in a customary use of words, is desig- 
nated selfishness. In order to be certain of keeping within 
the warrant of facts, we will content ourselves with saying that 
selfishness is the dominant disposition in sinful natures and a 
preéminently inclusive aspect of sins generally. 


IX.— BIBLICAL AND RATIONAL DATA AS TO Man’s Con- 
DITION BY BIRTH, OR THE QUESTION OF ORIGINAL SIN. 


One familiar with the theological teaching of the centuries, 
with its confident and explicit indoctrination on original sin, or 
the Adamic connections of human sinfulness, is naturally sur- 
prised when he turns to the Bible to find it well-nigh silent 
on this theme. In the Old Testament it is not awarded a 
single direct word. Only one New Testament writer makes 
specific mention of it, and that in the course of historical 
parallels where the line cannot be regarded as sharply drawn 
between literal fact and admissible symbolism. In neither 
Testament is there any approach to the assertion that the 
moral state of the race was so conditioned upon the conduct 
of Adam that if he had continued obedient to the divine com- 
mand the race would infallibly have persisted in holiness. This 


312 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


is a monstrous imagination which limits the notion of probation 
to Adam alone, if it does not cancel it entirely, and throws the 
whole responsibility for the occurrence of sin upon the will of 
God. For if God could have kept every one of Adam’s pos- 
terity from falling, then we are obliged to conclude that he 
could just as well as not have kept Adam from falling, and 
the fact of his transgression is clear proof that God was well 
pleased to have him transgress. But this conclusion makes a 
mock of sin, since it is perfectly manifest that what pleases 
God ought not to make anyone sorry, or else that it is obliga- 
tory to regard the divine pleasure a subordinate interest. 

Indirectly the Scriptures may be regarded as making con- 
siderable account of Adam’s trespass in its race connections. 
In the first place they strongly and repeatedly emphasize the 
fact of human sinfulness.1 Then again they place no little 
stress upon the continuity of human sinfulness, or its trans- 
mission through natural descent.2_ In the light of these two 
representations it logically follows that from the scriptural 
standpoint a serious import pertains to Adam’s trespass. It 
may not have been so destructive to Adam or to his posterity 
as theology has often pictured, but it had a great and somber 
significance as beginning the work of destruction. As an 
evil beginning, it initiated the depravation of the race, and 
so may properly be put in antithesis, as it is by Paul, to that 
glorious beginning of regenerate life which was consummated 
by the coming of Christ into the organism of humanity. 

This is the sum of scriptural teaching on the subject of 
original sin ; that is, the first trespass stands out as initiating 
the moral depravation which is a general characteristic of the 
race. It of course brought condemnation upon the person of 
the transgressor ; but the Scriptures nowhere explicitly assert 


1 Gen. vi. 5, 11-13, viii. 21; 1 Kings viii. 46; Job iv. 17-19, xiv. 4, xv. 14-16, 
xxv. 5, 6; Ps. xiv. 1-3, lili. 1-3, lvili. 1-3, cxliii. 2; Prov. xx.9; Eccl. vii. 20; Isa. 
{xiv. 6; Rom. iii. 9-12. 23, v. 12; Gal. ili. 22; Eph. ii, 3. 

2 Job xiv, 4; Ps. li, §;. John iti, 63. Eph: 7i,: 3. 


MEN. 313 


that this condemnation was at the same time that of the race, 
and in a fair construction they cannot be regarded as implying 
that it was. The most that can be alleged to the contrary 
from the Old Testament is the list of instances in which the 
later generations are seemingly held accountable for the sins 
of the earlier! It has been supposed by some scholars that 
in these instances there is generally the tacit assumption 
that the sins of the earlier generations are quite certain to be 
imitated by those immediately succeeding, so that the divine 
visitation, in reaching to the third or fourth generation, does 
not outrun the fact of sin. Moreover, in interpreting biblical 
language reference can be made to the distinction between in- 
heriting the consequences of sinful acts and being held morally 
blameworthy for the acts. But, for the present purpose, it is 
not necessary to insist upon these explanations. We may con- 
tent ourselves with the truth that if the Old Testament admits 
an extension of condemnation beyond the proper transgressors, 
and implicates their descendants in their guilt, this is a way 
of thinking which the Old Testament itself, in the best range 
of its teaching, transcends and repudiates in clear and emphatic 
terms.” 

As for the New Testament, only two or three Pauline pas- 
sages come into the account, as having any real appearance of 
making the race sharers in the guilt or condemnation of Adam’s 
sin. Of these the most important is Rom. v. 12-21. The 
apostle here draws a comparison between the evil potency 
in the sinning Adam and the beneficent or saving potency in 
the righteous Christ. As the one reached beyond all national 
bounds, and affected the lot of the race as a whole, so the 
other, which serves as an offset, is intrinsically adapted to be 
at least of as far-reaching effect. Both are pictured rather 


1 Ex, xx. 5, xxxiv. 7; Lev. xxvi. 39; Num. xiv. 18; Deut. v.9; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-9; 
Ps. cix. 14; Isa. xiv. 21, lxv. 6, 7; Jer. xxxii. 18; Lam. v. 7; Hos. iv. 6. 

2 Deut. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xiv. 6; Prov. ix. 12; Jer. xxxi. 29, 30; Ezek. xviii., 
XXxili, 10-20, 


314 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


according to their tendency than according to literal fact. 
Surely the potency of grace in Christ does not actually come 
upon all men unto justification of life, but it tends to that end, 
and hence is so described. In like manner the evil potency 
in the sinning Adam is characterized according to its tendency. 
In strictness it was only an initial cause of the depravation of 
the race; but as a corrupt disposition is a standing occasion 
of sin, the primary source of the corruption — the trespass of 
Adam — is graphically described as making men sinners, or as 
involving all in sin. This is bold language, to affirm the fact 
where only the potency comes into account which tends to 
the realization of the fact ; ‘but it is not discordant with Paul’s 
usage. He represents, for example, believers as having died 
with Christ, or as having been crucified with Him Why? 
Simply because the death of Christ had in itself a potency for 
extirpating or crucifying the old man with his carnal and sin- 
ful disposition. So in like manner as regards the sin of Adam. 
Men did not actually sin in his sin, or become sinners through 
him without an exercise in detail of personal agency, any 
more than they were actually crucified with Christ. Why 
should a prosaic and rigorous construction be demanded in 
the one instance and be excluded in the other? In either 
case, and no less in the one than in the other, it is reasonable 
to take the words of the apostle as religious oratory, in whose 
vivid strain the tendency is treated as substantially identical 
with the fact toward which it tends.” 


1 2 Cor. v. 14; Rom. vi. 6; Gal. ii. 20. 

2 That Paul could not have meant that the race literally shared in Adam’s sin is 
seen in the representation of verse 14 that a part of mankind did not sin after the 
similitude of Adam’s transgression. These were indeed sinners, in Paul’s view, as 
violating the dictates of conscience. But the fact that they were not regarded 
as sinners in the sense of Adam, who transgressed a positive precept, implies 
that his sin was not viewed as actually theirs. With the above interpretation the 
following from Professor George B. Stevens may be compared: “In what sense, 
according to Paul’s characteristic modes of thought, does he mean that all men 
sinned when Adam sinned? They sinned in the same sense in which believers 


MEN. 315 


The verses under consideration agree with 1 Cor. xv. 21, 
22, in pointing to the sinning Adam as the source of physical 
death. As visited on him death was a token of condemnation. 
But it is entirely arbitrary to attach the same meaning to it 
universally. Two distinct offices may be fulfilled by death, 
namely, that of punishment and that of discipline. Apart 
from the ends of mere punishment, a race, which had become 
heir to evil tendencies and needed to be held back from excess 
of wickedness, might conceivably be subjected to the restrict- 
ing and disciplining influence of mortality. Even if the dis- 
cipline were not needed by every member of the race, or should 
not be utilized upon all, still it might be required by the race 
as a whole, so that it could not well be omitted if God were to 
have a general plan of administration. Accordingly, the gen- 
eral reign of death is accounted for by the exigency growing 
out of the general fact of human sinfulness. As the sinful 
tendency ordinarily issues into actual transgressions, death falls 
ordinarily upon those who have incurred guilt. In a rapid 
view, therefore, such as is taken by the apostle, the dispensa- 
tion of death may be associated with a state of condemnation. 
But in a closer discrimination it must be granted that the 
association has only a relative propriety, or that the fact of 
death is no certain proof that condemnation ever attached to 
its subject in the sight of God. Standing in the race, the 
individual has to submit to the physical lot which the divine 
wisdom has thought fit to appoint to the race as a whole. 
His death does not necessarily witness to his personal de- 
merit, any more than a visitation of famine or plague neces- 


were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. 
The believer’s renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and ex- 
periences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of His vicar- 
ious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which 
flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of 
evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as 
a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.” (Pauline Theology, pp. 


135, 136.) 


316 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


sarily shows a whole community to be deserving of an extraor- 
dinary punishment. 

If the passage in the fifth chapter of Romans is not to be 
regarded as teaching the condemnation of all men on the 
simple ground of Adam’s sin, no more can such a tenet be 
found in Eph. i. 3. The context of the clause, “by nature 
children of wrath,’’ emphasizes the force of ungodliness in 
both Jews and Gentiles. There is nothing in the connection 
to hint that the sin of Adam was in the thought of the apostle. 
As little is there any indication that he was thinking of the 
state of new-born infants. It is the ingrained sinfulness of 
contemporary men, manifested in the fulfillment of fleshly 
desires, upon which he is dwelling. Surveying this rank of 
conscious accountable transgressors, and viewing them as liv- 
ing out a characteristic tendency or disposition, Paul speaks 
of them as by nature children of wrath. Would the apostle, 
apart from the assumed fact of a personal appropriation and 
living out of abnormal tendencies, have regarded any of this 
group as actually subjects of God’s wrath? We believe it rash 
to assume that he would. He has nowhere described little 
children as under the wrath of God. It is to be noticed, more- 
over, that Paul has given us a hint that the term ¢voe, “by 
nature,’ is not necessarily to be understood of a condition 
resulting simply from birth. In Rom. ii. 14 he speaks of the 
Gentiles as doing “by nature” the things of the law. Now, 
evidently he did not mean that they were born doers of the 
law, but only that they were born with a nature adapted to 
provide in due time for a sense of moral obligations. | In like 
manner the phrase in Ephesians may reasonably be taken as 
meaning, not that men are born children of wrath, but only 
that by birth they have a nature which tends to such personal 
choice and conduct as invite the divine displeasure. In any 
case, if we bring the New Testament into view, the scene of 
Christ blessing little children, and declaring that “of such is 
the kingdom of heaven,” must be regarded quite as truly indica- 


MEN. 317 


tive of their standing before God as a brief phrase in an epistle, 
in which there is no specific mention of children and no certain 
reference to their standing. 

If we pass from scriptural to rational data, there are over- 
whelming reasons for excluding the element of guilt from 
original sin, or man’s condition by birth. No subtle disquisi- 
tion can ever silence the verdict of common sense that it is 
impossible to hold a man responsible for a deed that was 
committed before his birth. Only a moral person, actually 
existing, can commit a deed of which either merit or demerit 
can be predicated. Mere potential existence is no basis for 
responsibility. If the race existed potentially in Adam, both 
Adam and the race existed potentially in God from all 
eternity. Shall divine deeds be put to the account of the 
race because of its potential existence in God? As well do 
this as to charge the deeds of Adam to his posterity because 
of its potential existence in him. 

Among the different theories which make Adam’s trespass 
a matter of guilt or condemnation to the race, there is not 
one that can endure rational inspection. Excluding compos- 
ite theories, we have the realistic theory, the theory of imme- 
diate imputation, and the theory of mediate imputation. 

The realistic theory supposes the species to exist prior to 
the individuals. A prominent advocate defines an individual 
as ‘‘a fractional part of human nature separated from the 
common mass.’’! As the undivided mass wasin Adam, all men 
were substantially in him, and so wrought together in his 
trespass. In the opinion of its upholders this view has the 
advantage of escaping the obnoxious element of an arbitrary 
imputation. But, were the theory metaphysically tenable, it 
would still be censurable as involving this very element. On 
the realistic hypothesis an individual of the present was 
indeed really in Adam; but just as really he was in his 


— 


1 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, IT, 72. 


318 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


immediate progenitor, as also in the whole direct line of his 
ancestors. How comes it then that he shared only in the 
guilt of an act committed by the remotest ancestor? If real 
existence in Adam explains his responsible share in the first 
trespass, then real existence in all the intermediate ancestors 
necessitates a responsible share in their trespasses. In fine, 
the realist can make no use of his realism in explanation of 
his doctrine of original sin, without an assumption, explicit or 
implicit, of a perfectly arbitrary decree separating the sin of 
Adam from all other ancestral sins and charging it alone 
upon the race, unless, forsooth, he appeals to the high-flying 
and grotesque conceit that Adam remains in perpetuity the 
distributor of souls, each man receiving human nature directly 
from him. Even in face of this conceit the question could 
be raised why, if Adam repented and was forgiven —as very 
likely was the case — the race preéxisting in him is not to be 
viewed as having shared in these experiences, so as no longer 
to bear the guilt of the first trespass. The realistic theory 
is thus without any special theological advantage to compen- 
sate for its metaphysical shortcomings. And these are not 
slight. How does it harmonize with the conception of a 
spiritual entity that it should be severed into fractional parts ? 
Is not division for such an entity equivalent to annihilation ? 
Truly if human nature can be parcelled out as this theory 
supposes, it must be composed of separable molecules or 
atoms, and belongs under the category of material stuffs. 
Then, too, a question may be raised as to the unequivocal 
title of any particular individual to the share of human nature 
which he is supposed to possess. This was once a part of 
the being of Adam, and also of the intermediate ancestors. 
When did Adam and the line of his successors suffer diminu- 
tion by the separation? Or if separation from the _ pre- 
existent mass caused no diminution, how is the idea of a 
finite entity which suffers no diminution by subdivision to be 
construed ? 


MEN, 319 


If the realist, instead of resorting to the theory just 
sketched, prefers to assume that human nature is an indivis- 
ible reality, then his postulate brings him face to face with a 
very serious problem as to the possible multipresence of a 
finite entity—its simultaneous existence whole and entire in 
any number of subjects. Nor is this all. He needs to grapple 
with the question whether distinctions of personality amount 
to anything more than diversities in accidental properties. If 
human nature taken as a real entity, one and self-identical, is 
in every man, then it would seem to follow that any given 
individual of the human race is, in the whole foundation and 
core of his being, identical with any other individual, and is 
distinguished from the same only superficially. Now, sucha 
flattening down of the significance of personality is something 
which a sober philosophy cannot regard favorably. It is the 
presupposition of all earnest thinking of a theistic and chris- 
tian order that distinctions of personality are the most funda- 
mental in the world. Men may be said to have a common 
nature in the sense that they are resembling personalities. 
To affirm that in the fundament and core of their being they 
are all one and the same entity, styled human nature, is to 
deny to them the proper uniqueness and significance of dis- 
tinct personalities. 

Enough has been said to indicate that the realistic theory 
makes rather than solves difficulties. A just verdict will rate 
it with obsolete scholastic trumpery as ignoring the wide dis- 
tinction between concrete realities and empty abstractions. To 
treat, as it does, an unreal abstract entity, styled human nature, 
as though it were identical with myriads of actual moral per- 
sons, is arbitrarily to extirpate, root and branch, the proper 
notion of moral personality. 

The theory of immediate imputation supposes Adam to have 
stood by divine appointment as the federal head of the race, 
their representative, so that his act was to be viewed not 
merely as his own but as the act of the race. The repre- 


3290 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


sentative sinned; and therefore the race in its entirety was 
counted guilty. What is this but the apotheosis of legal 
artifice? The same God whose penetrating glance burns away 
every artifice with which a man may enwrap himself, and 
reaches at once to the naked reality, is represented as swath- 
ing His judgment with a gigantic artifice, in that He holds 
countless millions guilty of a trespass which He knows was 
committed before their personal existence, and which they 
could no more prevent than they could hinder the fiat of crea- 
tion. If this is justice, then justice is a word of unknown 
meaning. Sane men condemn the savagery of the tribe which 
treats all of a nation as enemies because one or more of its 
representatives has offended. Shall sane men, then, think of 
the holy God as condemning a race in advance of its existence 
because of the sin of one? God's ways are indeed above 
man’s. But they must be supposed to lie in the direction of 
man’s best conceptions of justice and righteousness. To im- 
pute an unethical arbitrariness to God is to assail faith in the 
very idea of a Perfect Being. 

According to the doctrine of mediate imputation, the pos- 
terity of Adam are counted guilty, not because they are viewed 
as sinning in their representative, but because they have from 
the start a nature which was corrupted in Adam. The cor- 
rupted nature comes by natural descent, and is accounted a 
sufficient cause of condemnation in the sight of God. This 
view has been thought to ameliorate the arbitrariness which 
belongs to the doctrine of immediate imputation ; but there is 
little reason to prefer one to the other. Any evil which is 
matter of pure inheritance cannot rationally be made a ground 
of the moral reprobation of the person inheriting. To him it is 
calamity, and more properly calls for compassion than for con- 
demnation. It may not be ezsthetically pleasing. No more 
is congenital lameness zsthetically pleasing. If it is irrational 
cruelty to blame one for a bodily deficit which was thus given, 
rather than acquired by personal misconduct, it is, in like 


MEN. 321 


manner, gross injustice to blame one for a spiritual deficit 
which was imposed outright and in no part was acquired. 
Not the inheritance, but what is done with it, determines the 
question of blame. A man is bound to make the best pos- 
sible use of it. Only when in the exercise of his free agency 
he embraces and follows out the abnormal bent which came by 
inheritance, instead of using available means to oppose and 
conquer it, is he brought into condemnation. 

Aside from these two phases of imputation a pale and misty 
form has been founded on the notion that God viewed the race 
as condemned to extinction on account of Adam’s fall, and as 
acquiring a title to existence only through the projected work 
of Christ. But this notion cannot consistently be utilized for 
a definition of original sin as an actual status of men at birth. 
An order of thought respecting a non-existent or hypothetical 
subject is not determinative of the standing of an existing or 
real subject. The race as non-salvable, or apart from available 
conditions of blessedness, is a purely hypothetical subject 
which was never posited in the creative purpose, and with 
which it is no more proper to connect any notion of divine 
dealing than it is to ask a man what he would have done if he 
had never been born. The thought of God’s ethical nature 
is enough to assure us that He could never have purposed to 
create a non-salvable race. It requires us to conclude that the 
provision of tolerable conditions for the continuance of the race 
was a precondition of the purpose or decision to bring it into 
existence. 

We reach the conclusion then that guilt cannot possibly be 
a matter of inheritance, and that consequently original sin can 
be affirmed of the posterity of Adam only in the sense of 
hereditary corruption, which first becomes an occasion of guilt 
when it is embraced by the will of the individual. The force 
of this hereditary corruption must be regarded as different in 
different persons, if observation is to count for anything. In 
all, it limits rather than positively cancels receptivity for the 


322 THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 


divine life. Since it belongs to the idea of man to be in vital 
connection with God, it savors of exaggeration to estimate 
hereditary corruption by what a man would be in a so-called 
natural state, which is taken to mean a state of isolation from 
all spiritual influence from above. Such a state would be 
decidedly znnatural. Not what a man would be apart from 
all beneficent impact of God’s Spirit measures the force of 
hereditary corruption, but rather the extent to which his inner 
bent tends to hinder the vitalizing influence and guiding 
agency of that Spirit. As there is always some receptivity 
for this influence and agency at the beginning of a man’s 
moral career, Zotal depravity is in any case an ill-chosen term 
to describe hereditary corruption, at least where there is a 
pretense to anything like scientific accuracy. Still, both the 
Scriptures and experience teach that the current of corrupt 
nature is in general strong, and that the task of turning it 
back requires the best aids which heavenly wisdom and might 
can supply. It can be said reverently that the recovery of the 
race is costly work even for God Himself. 

The above discussion affords a standard for measuring per- 
sonal sinfulness. Evidently such perverse impulses and af- 
fections as are purely matter of inheritance do not by them- 
selves fall under that category. With impulses which are 
produced or nurtured by a perverse direction of the will, the 
case is appreciably different. Doubtless these cannot be placed 
on a parity with the ruling choice or attitude of will. But 
they are not indifferent attachments to moral personality, not 
simple misfortune. They constitute a chargeable abnormity. 
Of course when the direction of the will is changed and it 
ceases to foster them, their relative place in the description of 
character is greatly reduced. In spite of them a man can be 
approved as having the essential basis of true character. They 
need, nevertheless, to be healed, and the responsible origi- 
nator of them is bound to deplore them with greater or less 
humiliation of spirit till that end is reached. 


Part XV. 


THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE 
REDEEMER. 


Part XV. 


THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE 
REDEEMER. 


CITAPITERTT 
THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 


I.—Tue Facr or Curist’s Human NATURE. 


Ir is consonant with the leading conception of God as holy 
fove that in the enterprise of rescuing a race of sinners He 
should have chosen the method of incarnation. Hereby love 
was given the highest manifestation and the best opportunity 
to work with victorious efficiency. 

The evangelist, in describing the initial act in the great 
work of grace and love, says: “The Word became flesh.’’! 
In the light of the trinitarian theory, as set forth in a preced- 
ing chapter, this sentence requires us to think of a Divine 
Person, the Son of God, as appropriating at least a part of 
human nature and condition. Taken in its most restricted 
sense, it denotes that the preéxistent Son of God assumed a 
human body as the visible side of His personality. But it is 
not at all necessary to suppose that the statement was designed 
to be taken precisely in this restricted significance. Not to 





1 John i. 14. 


22 325 


326 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


recall Paul’s usage, the term “flesh” is employed by John in 
this same Gospel in a manifestly broader sense than that 
which belongs in strictness to the word body.! The term, 
therefore, cannot properly, in this connection, be interpreted 
against the idea that the Son of God assumed human nature 
in its entirety, so as to possess in His incarnate state a rational 
soul as wellas a body. The evangelist probably did not regard 
himself as giving here a precise definition of Christ’s person, 
and meant only to emphasize the truth that the preéxistent 
Logos, who had always been a principle of light and life in the 
world, came to concrete and settled manifestation in the form 
of man. 

The tenor of the New Testament may be described as 
distinctly favoring the conclusion that the person of Christ 
was inclusive of a complete human nature. It is true that 
there is not a single sentence that amounts quite to an explicit 
assertion of this conclusion. But in not a few passages there 
are points of view which suggest that Christ was truly man, 
whatever more He may have been. 

It is not a little significant that two of the writings which 
most emphasize His divinity, namely, the fourth Gospel and the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, contain the fullest evidence in behalf 
of His proper humanity. This fact betokens that, in apostolic 
thinking, divinity and humanity were not taken as mutually 
exclusive. The language in the Epistle to the Hebrews is 
especially cogent. In representing Christ as taking hold 
of the seed of Abraham instead of angels, as holding to men 
the relation of brother, and as being made in all respects like 
unto His brethren (Heb. ii. 11-17), it falls little short of a 
dogmatic assertion that Christ possessed human nature in its 
integrity. 

The same truth is brought out indirectly in all that class of 
passages which speak of the growth of Christ, of His tempta- 





1 John iii. 6, xvii. 2. 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 327 


tion, and of various traits and experiences which are appropri- 
ate to the human soul.! Doubtless those who believe the 
complete humanification of the Logos to be possible have a 
way of explaining these passages without postulating a human 
soul in Christ. But, as will be shown subsequently, their 
position encounters a serious rational objection. It also in- 
volves a forfeit from the religious point of view. For, unless 
one who proceeds from this standpoint has the hardihood to 
affirm that the Logos was permanently alienated from the 
divine mode of being, He must be supposed, after the season 
of humiliation, to retain the distinctively human element only 
as a memory of past experiences. That which in particular 
constituted him a brother among men is no longer present 
to His person. At least, the most apprehensible ground of 
brotherhood has vanished. 

A testimony to the human nature of Christ may also be 
discerned in the name “Son of Man,” which the gospel narra- 
tives report to have been applied by Himself several scores of 
times. It is true that some exegetes contend that this title, 
as used by Christ, was purely official, being based upon Dan. 
vii. 13, and signifying simply the Messiah. But even if the 
Messianic association of the title was a motive for its appro- 
priation, it is reasonable to conclude that it was in itself agree- 
able to the consciousness of Christ, accordant with His sense 
of truth and fitness, or else it would not have claimed so dis- 
tinctly His preference. The extent of its use in His discourses 
is more or less of a token that He inwardly confessed Himself 
to be a sharer in human nature. Doubtless it was convenient 
in the earlier part of His ministry, when He wished to avoid 
an open proclamation of His Messiahship, to use a title that 
was simply suggestive of a Messianic office rather than un- 





1 Luke ii, 40, 51, 52, iv. 1-12, xxii. 41-44; Matt. iv. I-11, xi. 29, xii. 46-50, 
xiv. 23, xxvi. 36-44; John iv. 6, v. 30, xi. 33-38, xii. 27, xiii, 21, xix. 26, 27; 1 
Cor. xv. 45; Heb. ii. 10, 18, iv. 15, v. 7-9. 

2? Compare James Stalker, The Christology of Jesus, pp. 70-79. 


328 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


equivocally declarative of the same. However, if the name 
«‘Son of Man” served thus to give an unobtrusive and par- 
tially veiled expression to a Messianic consciousness, and this 
was a motive for its choice, it still witnesses in a negative 
way to Christ’s sense of partnership in human nature. We 
can hardly suppose that He would have been partial to a 
name which carried an import distinctly contrary to His self- 
consciousness.! 

If less cogent than the scriptural evidence, the rational 
ground for imputing complete humanity to Christ is to be 
credited with a certain weight. Without this component in 
His person, He would seem to fall short of the ideal qualifica 
tion for the offices of redemption, reconciliation, and headship. 
We are not, indeed, disposed to contend that without the hypo- 
static union of a human nature with the divine in the Redeemer, 
He would have had no true means of saving men and uniting 
them with God. Men are saved by spiritual influence exer- 
cised upon them individually, and not by the mere exaltation 
of a specimen of human nature into divine union. The lot of 
human nature in Christ can affect positively the lot of human 
nature outside only as it is a medium of manifesting truth, 
or conveying some form of spiritual potency. The means of 
actually grappling with men, influencing, persuading and sub- 
duing them, are above all else the necessary instruments of 
their salvation. And it is going much too far to say that there 
would have been no such means, that all the purity, beauty, 
and grace manifested in our incarnate Lord could have no 
redeeming efficacy, unless the complete essence of humanity 
was united in Him with the essence of divinity. Again, we 
are not disposed to affirm that the Son of God needed to as- 
sume a human soul in order, on His part, to stand in a sympa- 


} An indication that in the minds of the people the term “Son of Man” was 
not clearly recognized to be an equivalent for “ Messiah” may be discerned in the 
form of the question which Christ put to His disciples, as reported in Matt. xvi. 13, 
“Who do men say that the Son of Man is? ” 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 329 


thetic relation with men. This line of thought is derogatory 
to the divine heart. Whence come the tenderness of human 
sympathy and the warmth of human love? What more are they 
in their best expressions, than reflected beams of that incom- 
parable light which shines in divine altitudes? But, notwith- 
standing these concessions, there is room still to hold that the 
human nature of Christ enters as a completing element into 
the conception of His office as Redeemer and head of the race. 
If it does not make the Son of God nearer to men in the fact of 
a sympathetic interest, it does make Him nearer in the appre- 
hension of men. And from a practical point of view this is all- 
important. To the average man the very thought that the 
Mediator has a human heart and soul is a kind of introduction to 
Him, and through Him tothe Supreme Father. It is a spring 
of confidence and home-like feeling which is often needed even 
by the most spiritually minded. When the idea of God tends 
to lose a part of its vitality through vagueness and generality, 
a point of connection and renewed apprehension is given in 
the vision of Him who is brother by possession of our nature, 
as well as Lord by His transcendence of human limitations. 
Taking men, accordingly, as they are, and making due account 
of their actual needs, it seems necessary to conclude that the 
ideal fulfillment of His gracious offices requires the Redeemer 
to share truly in the nature of those to be redeemed. 

From the first era of distinct christological construction the 
Church, with moderate exceptions, has deemed it necessary to 
predicate a complete human nature of Christ. The temptation 
to simplify the problem of the Redeemer’s person by excluding 
one factor or another has generally been resisted. Thus the 
fathers of the fourth century were not driven by the Arian 
reproach, that they compromised the unity of Christ’s person, 
to let go the doctrine that the preéxistent Son of God assumed 
a human soul as well as a body. Apollinaris was indeed dis- 
comfited by the Arian objection, and concluded that it was a 
matter of discretion to teach that the Logos took the place 


330 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


of the rational soul in Christ, so that the incarnation must be 
understood as involving only the assumption of a human body 
with its principle of physical life. The Apollinarian tenet, 
however, was discarded by the Nicene fathers. It was con- 
demned at the Council of Constantinople in 381, and in 451 
the Council of Chalcedon affirmed the integrity of Christ’s 
human nature, declaring Him possessed of a ‘rational soul 
and a body, consubstantial with us according to His manhood, 
in all things like unto us, without sin.”’ In recent times the 
theory of Apollinaris has had an occasional advocate; but its 
abridgment of Christ’s human nature is quite outside of the 
main current. Indeed, it may be described as a characteristic 
tendency of the later theology to insist, that whatever higher 
factor may have been included in His person, Christ was 
truly man. 

The dogmatic value of this christological consensus depends 
undoubtedly very much upon the amount of free mental en- 
gagement and healthy feeling back of it, as opposed to the 
constraint of ecclesiastical authority and the indolent accept- 
ance of theological precedent. It will not be rash, however, 
to regard it as carrying a general presumption of truth, though 
the greater weight belongs to the testimony of Scripture and 
to a rational view of the demands of the Redeemer’s offices. 


II. — DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF CHRIST AS MAN. 


The New Testament represents Christ’s manhood as dis- 
tinguished in two eminent particulars, namely, supernatural 
conception and sinlessness. The former is distinctly affirmed 
in two of the Gospels.! To those not ill-affected toward ac- 
counts of the supernatural, this makes a credible historic 
basis. It is true that if Mark had dealt with the infancy of 





1 Matt. i. 18, 20; Luke i. 31-38. 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 331 


Jesus, a reference to the supernatural conception might be 
looked for in his narrative. But, inasmuch as this evangelist 
saw fit to begin the story of Jesus with His baptism, his omis- 
sion of one of the conditions of the nativity in nowise dis- 
credits the reports of the other evangelists. As for John, the 
plan of his narrative excluded any detailed reference to the 
birth of Christ. Moreover, as he wrote after the Gospels of 
Matthew and Luke were at hand, his silence imports at least 
that he had no interest to contradict their statements on this 
subject. 

The fact that no reference, direct or indirect, is made to 
the supernatural conception in other parts of the New Testa- 
ment is not necessarily a ground for scepticism. A reference 
to it ought not to be expected in the body of the Gospels. 
How could Christ or His friends be inclined to make public 
mention of such a theme as the peculiarity of His conception 
in that atmosphere charged with hostility and suspicion ? 
Delicacy and prudence naturally put a seal upon their lips, 
when to speak would have moved the slanderous tongue to 
base insinuations against Mary and her Son. The venom 
which afterwards flowed from the pen of Celsus and others, 
in charges of adultery and bastardy, may serve to teach us 
that it was no unnatural reserve which kept the fact of the 
supernatural conception in the background till a_ believing 
community had been established. As respects the silence of 
the Epistles, it may affect in some measure our estimate of 
the dogmatic significance of the supernatural conception, but 
it cannot legitimately be cited against the historic fact. On 
the contrary, it is an evidence in favor of the assumed fact, 
as testifying that it was not imported into the record to 
accommodate any supposed dogmatic necessity. 

If not accounted for by a dogmatic interest, what shall ex- 
plain the reference to the supernatural conception in Matthew 
and Luke? It is a poor explanation, certainly, which is found 
in the contagion of contemporary systems of thought. In 


332 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


a community which was composed largely of converts from 
Judaism, and was under the direction of apostles who were 
all of Jewish antecedents, there was naturally too much an- 
tipathy to Gentile mythologies to allow suggestions from 
their stories of the birth of heroes and divinities to be bor- 
rowed and incorporated into representative documents. In- 
deed, we can point to the indisputable fact that already 
thoughtful heathen had become ashamed of the misalliances 
of their gods with mortals, and that early Christian literature 
refers to them throughout in a tone of sharp criticism and 
irony. As regards the circle of Judaism, the evidence is 
wanting that there was a current expectation that the Messiah 
would be conceived by the Holy Spirit. In truth, an infer- 
ence directly to the contrary is strongly favored by the fact 
that a prominent wing of the Judaizing Ebionites rejected the 
account of the supernatural conception. Being thus without 
explanation in Gentile mythology or Jewish expectation, that 
account may justly be regarded as belonging to the early or 
apostolic tradition. 

The fact that the New Testament makes no specific dog- 
matic use of the supposition of the supernatural conception 
may well render us cautious about asserting that it was an in- 
dispensable condition of the ideal character which pertained 
to Jesus. Nevertheless, we shall be at a loss to imagine a 
more economical expedient for bringing about such a character. 
If we suppose natural generation, we have still to explain the 
unique balance of temperament in Christ and. His superiority 
to the ordinary traces of human infirmity and corruption. But 
it is far from clear that we can carry through this explanation 
without presuming upon a conditioning agency of God, a super- 
natural intervention, quite the equivalent of that which is im- 
plied in the assumption of conception by the extraordinary 
agency of the Holy Spirit. 

The second distinction of Christ, His sinlessness, was 
manifestly one with which the apostolic consciousness was 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 333 


thoroughly penetrated. John represents Christ as saying, 
with evident reference to Himself: “He that seeketh the 
glory of Him that sent Him, the same is true, and no unright- 
eousness is in Him.”! Again the evangelist puts these words 
into His mouth: “ He that sent me is with me; He hath not 
left me alone, for I do always the things which are pleasing 
to Him.” ? Furthermore, in his First Epistle he makes this 
unqualified declaration: “ Ye know that He was manifested 
to take away sins ; and in Him is no sin.” ? Peter speaks of 
Christ as one “who did no sin, neither was guile found in 
His mouth.”* The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
pronounces Jesus “without sin”’ in the face of all tempta- 
tions,° and characterizes Him as “holy, guileless, and unde- 
filed.”’® Paul makes this unequivocal declaration of Christ’s 
sinlessness: “Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on 
our behalf ; that we might become the righteousness of God 
in Him.”’7? Less directly, but yet in no doubtful terms, he 
expresses the same sentiment in these words: ‘ What the law 
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God send- 
ing His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an 
offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.’’’ In fine, the 
complete sinlessness of Christ can be described as nothing 
less than a central and fundamental assumption in apostolic 
thought. It was the axiom prefixed to the whole apostolic doc- 
trine of salvation. 

Objections to the supposition of a sinless humanity in 
the Redeemer from a philosophic standpoint need very little 
consideration, since they have no other ground than the arbi- 
trary assumption of a necessary connection between imper- 
fection and finite personality. Scarcely more account needs 
to be made of the historical objections which some writers 
have thought fit to enumerate, bringing their criticisms to 
bear, for example, upon the act of Christ in reproving the 


1 John vii. 18. $y John iii. 5. § Heb. iv. 15. 7 2 Cor. v. 21. 
2 John viii, 29. Si Pet ia2. 6 Heb, vii. 26. ® Rom, viii. 3. 


334 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


over-anxiety of His mother, or the sharpness with which He 
rebuked pharisaical hypocrisy, or the indignation with which 
He expelled the traffickers from the temple, or the curse pro- 
nounced by Him upon the barren fig-tree. Instances of this 
sort make too petty a ground of impeachment to be of account 
except in the eyes of a criticism that is predisposed to seek for 
flaws. They can be explained from admissible, not to say in- 
trinsically preferable, points of view. The outflow of righteous 
indignation against the temple traffickers and the scathing re- 
buke of the Pharisees were justifiable in themselves, and were 
a needed warning to all the Christian ages against practices 
and tempers which pervert and caricature’religion.! The inci- 
dent of the fig-tree may be taken as a visible parable convey- 
ing an important lesson. As to words in other connections 
into which it is possible to read a suggestion of severity, it is 
to be said that the kindness and tender consideration, which 
in general were certainly characteristic of Jesus, may be pre- 
sumed to have ruled His tone and manner in such a way as 
to exclude all misplaced asperity. 

Positive proof of Christ’s sinlessness by way of analysis is 
of course entirely out of the question, since large areas of His 
earthly life are hidden from sight. But if proof in this sense 
cannot be forthcoming, adequate grounds for a rational faith 
are not wanting. Aside from the apostolic witness we have the 
unique fact of a total absence in the life of Christ of any dis- 
closure of a consciousness of sin. How explain this exemp- 
tion from the shadow which belongs to all ordinary human 
consciousness? If it was not due to a genuine reality, it was 





1“ The prophetic spirit,” says James Martineau, “ is sometimes oblivious of the 
rules of the drawing-room; and inspired conscience, like the inspiring God, seeing 
a hypocrite, will take the liberty to say so, and act accordingly. Are the superficial 
amenities, the soothing fictions, the smotherings of the buming heart really para- 
mount in this world, and never to give way? And when a soul of power, unable 
to refrain, rubs off, though it be with rasping words, all the varnish from rottenness 
and lies, is he to be tried in our courts of compliment for a misdemeanor?” (Cited 
by Lidgett, The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, p. 29.) 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 335 


an eccentricity which naturally would have borne fruit in prac- 
tical aberrations. As Bushnell aptly remarks: “ Piety without 
one dash of repentance, one ingenuous confession of wrong, 
one tear, one look of contrition, one request to heaven for 
pardon — let any one of mankind try this kind of piety, and 
see how long it will be ere his righteousness will prove itself 
to be the most impudent conceit! how long before his passions, 
sobered by no contrition, his pride kept down by no repen- 
tance, will tempt him into absurdities that will turn his pre- 
tenses to mockery!” +! .The fact that no such aberration is 
discoverable in the life of Christ is a cogent evidence that His 
unconsciousness of sin was not chargeable to any mist of self- 
deception. Again, we meet in Christ a spiritual freedom, 
which argues that as He knew not the guilt of sin, so He was 
not subject to its shackles. ‘‘ He stands free in the presence 
of law and tradition, of friend and foe, of the world and the 
Father, whom He obeys not otherwise than in perfect freedom. 
Everywhere He feels and manifests Himself as the Son of the 
house, who is free, and makes free, in opposition to the slaves 
of sin.”’? Still further, along with this consistent accompani- 
ment of a guiltless conscience, there is another which is no less 
consistent, and which, therefore, comes into evidence as being 
a conspicuous element in a harmonious picture of a sinless per- 
sonality. We refer to Christ’s claim to be the judge of all 
men. Where should the consciousness of such an office reside 
except in the spirit of Him who was clearly assured that there 
was no ground of adverse judgment against Himself? Such a 
factor in His consciousness points either to sinlessness or to 
a high pitch of self-deception. How little the choice of the 
latter alternative comports with a sane judgment must be felt 
by everyone who duly contemplates the life of Christ, with 
its matchless impress of balance, proportion, and fulness of 
spiritual wisdom. 





1 Nature and the Supernatural, pp. 285, 286. 
2 Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, p. 500. 


336 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


Viewed as to its practical import, Christ’s sinless humanity 
must be regarded as the choicest and most significant of 
miracles. To men who know the desperate tenacity of sin, 
and long for deliverance, the vision of one who was tempted, 
but yet without sin, is a perennial source of inspiration and 
hope. It illustrates and enforces, as nothing else can, the 
idea of a possible glorification of human nature. Association 
in thought with such a captain of our salvation has in itself a 
redemptive potency. 

The question, however, has arisen whether the fact of temp- 
tation is consonant with that of sinlessness. That this ques- 
tion must be answered in the affirmative has already been 
shown in the discussion of the primal apostasy. It belongs to 
a finite nature, at least before character has been confirmed 
by the use of personal agency, to be temptable. As a man, 
Christ may be supposed to have had the sensibilities, affections, 
and spontaneous impulses which are native to man. If love 
of power, thirst for happiness, aversion to pain, shrinking from 
disgrace, and desire to please are characteristic motives in the 
heart of man, they may be judged to have had a foundation 
also in Christ’s human constitution. Now any one of these 
constitutional traits might conceivably become a ground of 
temptation. For example, the natural gratification in the use 
of power might urge to an exhibition of might and authority 
out of harmony with His vocation. Why should He let the 
stones mock his hunger when He was able to turn them into 
bread?) Why should He expose Himself as a defenseless man 
when His word of command could bring legions of angels to 
His relief? In like manner the human desire of happiness 
in the bosom of Christ and his instinctive aversion from pain 
and disgrace might start a recoil from the ordeal of the judg- 
ment hall, the crown of thorns, and the shameful cross. 

The unique relation of the human in Christ to the divine 
may be thought to have furnished Him with a very special 
support in temptation. In one point of view this must appear 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 337 


to have been so, though it is far from legitimate to imagine 
the divine and the human in Christ to have been related like 
two physical magnitudes, of which the lesser necessarily yields 
to the greater. But, in another point of view, the extraordin- 
ary in the person and consciousness of Christ can be seen to 
have added to the sharpness of His trial, since trial is to be 
measured by the height of the dignity which it assails as well 
as by the depth of the discomfort to which it casts down. It 
may be easy for a lamb to be led as a lamb to the slaughter ; 
but how should it be easy for the Lion of the Tribe of Judah 
to be thus led? How should it be easy for Him, who, out of 
the fullness of His conscious life and power, could call Him- 
self the “resurrection and the life,” to be made a spectacle of 
weakness, of shame, and of dying? Thus the very factor in 
His personality which gave special support, at the same time 
involved special trial, as broadening the contrast between con- 
scious dignity and actual lot. 

The pain of temptation in the case of Christ is not to be 
estimated by the liability of falling. As Bruce has well re- 
marked, ‘Sinful dispositions, though certainly making men 
more liable to fall before temptation, do not increase the pain- 
ful sense of being tempted, but rather diminish it.”! As to 
the fact of this liability on the part of Christ, it seems specula- 
tively necessary, in consideration of the reality of His human- 
ity, to allow that it existed in some measure, though to the 
mysterious forecast of the divine omniscience it was certain 
that the liability would never issue into an actual fault. 


} Humiliation of Christ, p. 266. 


338 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


III.— THE PROBLEM OF THE UNION OF THE HUMAN AND 
THE DIVINE IN CHRIST. 


Recalling the proofs of Christ’s divinity, and conjoining 
them with the tokens of His complete humanity, we are con- 
fronted with the great problem of His person, the union of the 
divine and the human. 

Before dealing formally with this problem, it will be appro- 
priate to consider how far there is a real demand for a solution. 
Certainly it would be a gross mistake to imagine that pious 
contemplation must be arrested, or that faith must renounce 
a joyful apprehension of the honor and blessing conferred 
upon man by the incarnation, until speculation has framed a 
consistent view of the way in which the human and the divine 
are related in Christ’s person. As well wait for a calculation 
of the size of the sun before enjoying his light and warmth, or 
for an exact determination of the distance of the stars before 
taking in the impression of majesty and glory which falls from 
the evening sky. The wealth of Christ’s person is a source 
of edification in advance of, and apart from, all formal analytic 
or constructive effort. In a general view, such as an artist 
takes of a comprehensive subject, the antithesis between the 
human and the divine in our Lord scarcely conveys an im- 
pression of incongruity. As the human spirit is in the image 
of the divine, the perfections of a pure human spirit are in the 
direction of divine perfections. So a glance at the human 
graces of Christ gives an authentic suggestion of what is in 
the profoundest depths of His being. As regards any ethical 
trait, the passage from the human to the divine is the passage 
from the image or symbol to that which is shadowed forth 
thereby. And, even in relation to aspects which involve more 
contrast, there is very largely occasion for pleasing wonder- 
ment rather than for perplexity. Who finds any painful 
enigma in the conjunction of tender sympathy with superior 
might? Who is stumbled by seeing the one who commanded 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 339 


the winds and the waves so entering into the affliction of be- 
loved friends as to weep at the tomb of Lazarus? If suffering 
and humiliation seem foreign to so exalted a person, they but 
serve to emphasize the mystery of His loving condescension. 
Even the thought itself of the union of the finite with the 
transcendent, however the intellect may wrestle with it, has 
its consoling mystery, for the human heart feels itself enriched 
in contemplating a Redeemer who is at once in its own plane 
and exalted above it by the possession of limitless glory. 
The above may serve to illustrate that edifying contempla- 
tion of the divine-human Christ does not depend upon a specu- 
lative solution of the problem of His person, and that its 
legitimacy is not brought in question by the poor success 
of this or that speculative attempt. Nevertheless, it is un- 
doubtedly a part of the task of theological science to work 
out, as far as possible, the christological problem. The end to 
be reached, it is hardly needful to say, is such an exposition 
of the relation of the human and the divine in Christ as is 
required on the one hand by the historical data, and on the 
other by rational conceptions of personality, as also by normal 
views of the essential attributes of humanity and divinity. 


IV.—EXPOSITION AND CRITICISM OF SOME MODERN CHRIST- 
OLOGICAL THEORIES. 


Since the close of the great christological controversies, 
which began in the fourth century and ended in the seventh, 
there has been a formal repudiation in the Church at large 
both of Nestorianism and of Monophysitism, both of the 
scheme which is deemed to compromise the unity of Christ’s 
person and of that which fuses or confounds the two natures. 
In other words, the creed of the Council of Chalcedon has 
been taken as the common basis. But it has been felt in 
seme quarters that this creed rather gives the elements that 


340 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


are to be recognized, than offers any complete and satisfactory 
view of their interrelation. Accordingly, attempts have been 
made at a further construction in the interest of a more unified 
view of the divine-human personality of the Redeemer. The 
more radical of these attempts have not won any eminent suc- 
cess, as will appear from an examination of the doctrine of the 
communicatio tdiomatum and that of the Kenoszs. 

The rise of the former was associated with the eucharistic 
controversy between the Lutheran and Zwinglian party in the 
early stages of the Reformation. In sustaining his doctrine 
of the real presence, Luther found occasion to affirm ubiquity 
of Christ’s body; and, to account for the possession of this 
property, he resorted to the thought of an interchange of 
predicates between the divine and the human nature. In the 
development of the Lutheran christology, the idea of a com- 
munication from the human side to the divine soon receded 
from sight, and pretty much the whole stress was laid upon 
the communication of the divine predicates to the manhood 
of Christ. It was held in the more stringent form of the 
doctrine that in virtue of this communication Christ as man 
was omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient from the first 
moment of His conception, and, as man, made a constant, 
though secret, use of the divine attributes. In the least ultra 
phase of the doctrine, an intermittent or occasional communi- 
cation was assumed ; but the tendency, even of the moderate 
party, was to recede from this position, and to maintain that, 
while there was only an occasional use of the divine attributes, 
these were in the constant possession of Christ on the side of 
His manhood. 

In its general tenor, the theory of the communicatio idto- 
matum may be described as an expedient to gain a unified 
view of Christ’s person by making the humanity coéxtensive 
with the divinity. But what is actually gained is rather a 
virtual elimination of the human side than a consistent con- 
ception of its union with the divine. A humanity which, from 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 34! 


its first inception, is vested with the divine attributes, is not a 
real humanity. It is claimed, indeed, that the integrity of the 
human nature is not cancelled, since the divine attributes are 
not supposed to pertain to it naturally, but only by communi- 
cation. This plea, however, is not satisfactory. Either the 
human nature must appear to be despoiled of its proper 
activity and character, or no special advantage in respect of 
unity can be seen to be achieved by the theory of communi- 
cated predicates. If the communication, as the conditions 
seem to require, effects that the human nature should not 
subsist at all on the limited human scale — corporeal, intel- 
lectual, and volitional —then it is only a theoretic entity, — 
merely something that would be were it not for the radical 
transformation or nullification which is constantly effected 
from the side of Christ’s divinity. What is actually presented 
is the divine under a new category, namely, that of communi- 
cation, plus an abstract or nominal humanity. If, on the other 
hand, the human, in its characteristic finitude, is assumed in 
any wise to remain, notwithstanding the communication, then 
the humanity of Christ must be supposed to subsist in a 
double character, an element not commensurate with the 
divine is predicated, and the unified view which was sought 
is not obtained. 

It must also be regarded as the reverse of a recommenda- 
tion of the theory in question, that it is not naturally suggested 
by the life of Christ as recorded in the New Testament. No 
unsophisticated reader of the Gospels would ever derive’a hint 
from them that the ascension was coincident with the incar- 
nation, that humanity in the infant Jesus was at once uplifted 
to the plane of a world-governing omnipotence. In fact, sucha 
conception of the result of the incarnation is contradicted with 
sufficient plainness by the declaration that Christ in His child- 
hood grew in wisdom,! and by the intimation that His knowl- 





1 Luke ii. 52. 
23 


342 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


edge, even at the stage of manhood, was not unbounded! A 
partial escape from collision with the evangelical narratives 
is indeed open to those holding that the use of the communi- 
cated predicates was largely suspended during the earthly life 
of Christ. But their point of view has its special difficulties, 
such as the assumed possession of inoperative divine attributes. 
This looks very much. like a non-causal causality. What can 
be meant by an unused omniscience and omnipresence, or an 
optional use of omniscience and omnipresence, is puzzling to 
determine. 

Some of the above criticisms lie close to the question of the 
possibility of the alleged communication of divine predicates 
to the human nature. Where is the warrant for assuming this 
possibility ?. It is certainly no dictate either of experience or 
reason that a finite nature or substance can become the pos- 
sessor of infinite properties. The ordinary philosophical sup- 
position is that properties are descriptive of substance, that 
there is nothing else which can make substance known to us, 
and, consequently, that they cannot be known as either above 
or below its measure. To assume a property exceeding indefi- 
nitely the nature of that to which it is communicated is to 
assume that our sole means of knowing a particular substance 
may have no accord with that substance, or, in other words, 
that the exclusive means of interpreting the nature of a thing 
may contradict its nature. In this line of procedure the con- 
ception of identity is hopelessly confused. For, what test of 
identity is available if we hold that the nature of the subject 
remains the same when properties which belong entirely out- 
side the plane of its nature have been added? As well suppose 


1 Matt. xxiv. 36; Mark xiii. 32. An interpretation somewhat current among 
the fathers, namely, that Christ spoke here simply as a man, is not adapted to carry 
conviction. On the contrary, the very form of the expression, the climax employed 
—— “no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son ” —testifies that He 
spoke out of a consciousness of transcendent rank, out of the sense of His position 
as the Son of God. 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 343 


that the brute nature continues to be the brute nature when 
invested with all the high attributes of rational manhood, as to 
suppose that human nature does not forfeit its identity when 
invested with the incommensurate attributes of divinity. A 
communication which thus cannot be conceived, without a dis- 
placement of the supposed subject of it, appears philosophically 
impossible. With all respect, then, for the learning and subtlety 
of the eminent theologians who have advocated the doctrine of 
the communicatio tdiomatum we cannot regard their theory 
as a true aid to the solution of the christological problem. 


The radical doctrine of the Aezoszs} is in a manner the 
reverse of that just examined, as aiming to secure a unified 
view of Christ’s person by bringing the divine down to the 
plane and measure of humanity. This is the characteristic 
feature of the doctrine in all its phases, of which three are 
sufficiently distinct to merit attention. 

The first of these Kenotic theories is that advocated by 
Thomasius. Without a self-limitation of the divine, he claims, 
no true union with the human is possible. The divine self- 
consciousness is an infinitely larger circle than the human, and 
their coéxistence implies a dualism destructive to personal 
unity. To gain a basis for unity there must be a depotenti- 
ation of the divine. Such, in fact, occurred when the Word 
was made flesh. The eternal Logos emptied Himself, not 
indeed of what is strictly essential to God, but of the divine 
mode of being. He put aside the divine glory, the divine 
self-consciousness, the divine attributes connected with the 
dominion of the world, such as omnipotence, omniscience, 
and omnipresence, renouncing not merely their use, but their 
possession as well. He came entirely within the limits of 
a human earthly life. ‘In the totality of His being He be- 
came man.’ The essential holiness and truth of the divine 


1 The term was suggested by Phil. ii. 7, éxévwoe éavrov, “he emptied himself”? 


344 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


nature assumed in Him the form of human velition and 
thought; the absolute love and freedom took on the form of 
human feeling and self-determination. There was no distine 
tion between a divine and a human consciousness in Him, but 
only a distinction of moments, or elements, in a single self-con- 
sciousness, somewhat as in the regenerate man the undivided 
self-consciousness includes the two moments of the divine and 
the natural life. Having descended from the divine to the 
human rank, He returned after the analogy of a human 
development, and, in the glorification which followed His 
earthly ministry, rose completely to His original plane, appear- 
ing thenceforth as the omnipotent, omniscient, God-man.1 

A second form of Kenotic doctrine is represented by Gess. 
Though Thomasius affirmed a human soul in Christ, his 
scheme, with its humanized Logos, appears to have very 
little use for such a constituent. Gess boldly decided for its 
rejection altogether. As he represents, the Logos became the 
human soul that dwelt in the body derived from the Virgin. 
Apollinaris was right in refusing to conjoin the Logos with a 
human soul ; but he was radically in error in making the incar- 
nated Logos immutable. He was every way man, with the 
charaeteristic mutability of man, able to sin, though in fact 
sinless. Such a theory seems to involve the conclusion that 
one of the Divine Persons disappeared for a time from the 
Trinity. Gess admits this in the fullest terms. The depo- 
tentiation of the Logos, as he teaches, affected the life of the 
Godhead in a fourfold manner: (1) The Father suspended 
the communication of divine life to the Son. (2) The Son 
ceased to be joint source for the procession of the Holy Spirit. 
(3) The Son ceased to be the upholding and conserving prin- 
ciple of the world. (4) In reassuming His glory, the Son 
entered as man into the Trinity.” 

Naturally this free dealing with the subject of the Trinity 





nee 





re 


1 Dogmatik, $$ 38-45. 2 Lehre von der Person Christi. 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 345 


was not acceptable to all advocates of the doctrine of the 
kenosis. We have accordingly a third type of kenotic teach- 
ing represented by Ebrard and some others, which endeavors 
to keep the trinitarian scheme inviolate by the assumption of 
a double life of the Logos. On the one hand, as they teach, 
the Logos becomes the man Jesus, emptied of His divine glory, 
and possessed of a purely human consciousness and will; on 
the other hand, He retains without interruption His existence 
and activity in the Trinity. The same ego subsists at once 
in the eternal and the temporal mode, as infinite and as con- 
fined by the narrow bounds of man’s estate. 

As respects apparent scriptural basis, the doctrine of the 
kenosis has an advantage over the doctrine of the com- 
municatio idiomatum. The language of Paul in Phil. ii. 5-8 
and 2 Cor. viii. 9 indicates the belief of the apostle that in 
some sense the preéxistent Son of God emptied Himself 
when He took on the form of a servant. But is it necessary 
to understand this self-emptying as being of the character 
of the metaphysical depotentiation assumed by the radical 
doctrine of the kenosis? We are confident that it is not. 
It is certainly no strained interpretation which regards the 
cardinal point of view in these verses as that of manifesta- 
tion. Nothing is said of a change of the divine essence, or 
of the putting aside of divine atrributes. It is the poppy 
the form, the character apprehensible to one standing within 
the proper sphere of manifestation, that is the subject of 
choice.2- The preéxistent Son did not choose such a form 
of manifestation as was appropriate to, and naturally as- 
sociated with, His divine dignity. In His marvelous hu- 
mility He chose the form of a servant. He who was above 
principalities and powers, by His own free election, was 
presented to men in and through suffering, obedience, and 


i1We have used substantially the language of the History of Doctrine, II. 349-351, 
since we could find no briefer terms which might suitably describe these theories. 

* Meyer regards mop) as an appropriate concrete expression for the divine d0éa, not 
equivalent to Pvats or ovata, but presupposing the divine duvets. 


346 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


death. As a king going into an outlying province in the 
guise of one of the meanest of his subjects might be said 
to empty himself of the kingly form, so the Son of God re- 
nounced the divine form. Not what He was in Himself was 
renounced, but a manifestation conformable to His intrinsic 
dignity and glory. Thus, the vivid picture in this apostolic 
text can be justified without being taken in the sense of the 
radical doctrine of the kenosis. Furthermore, we have a 
hint that the apostle did not so understand it in statements 
in Colossians respecting the dwelling of the divine fullness 
in Christ.1 Nothing is said here to suggest an interruption 
of this indwelling during the time of the earthly mission. On 
the contrary, the connection of the verses in chapter i. implies 
that Christ had the fullness while performing the work of 
reconciliation, and that a preéminently important stage of this 
work was completed in the death upon the cross. Thus the 
representations of the epistle are averse to the supposition of 
an emptying as respects the inner life of the Son of God. 
Being under no compulsion, on the score of scriptural 
teaching, to accept the radical doctrine of the kenosis, we may 
give full force to the rational objections to which it is ex- 
posed. And these are truly formidable. In the first place a 
difficulty is noticeable in the bearing of the kenotic theory 
upon the humanity of Christ. If complete humanity is pos- 
tulated, the human soul included, as in the teaching of 
Thomasius, then nothing is accomplished toward securing 
a unified view of Christ’s person. The depotentiated Logos 
would only be similar to the human soul in Jesus, not iden- 
tical therewith, and on the recovery of its pristine condition 
would stand in as distinct antithesis to that soul as appears 
on any theory of our Lord’s person. On the other hand, if 
the central constituent of human nature, the rational soul, is 
denied, as in the teaching of Gess, then there is predicated 








VC Ola LO-a a ak Dee Os 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 347 


of Christ not manhood proper, but only a passing semblance 
of manhood. The ascended Son of God, recovered from the 
state of depotentiation, might retain the memory of an 
experience akin to that of man, but He could not in any true 
sense be accounted a possessor of manhood. In this view 
the incarnation would be more like to a theophany than to 
an incarnation in the customary Christian sense. And such 
a result, as has been previously indicated, could not be ac- 
cepted by Christian minds without a sense of loss. 

In the second place, the radical kenotic theory, at least 
in the forms taught by Thomasius and Gess, encounters a 
serious difficulty in its bearing on the trinitarian relation. 
According to catholic teaching the trinitarian process is 
essential to the life of the Godhead. God is in the supreme 
sense the living God just because of that ideal combination 
of manifoldness with unity which is realized in and through 
the interrelated Divine Persons. How then does it appear 
consistent with the integrity of the divine life that one of 
the Persons should be eclipsed as respects the divine mode 
of His consciousness and operation, and be carried over into 
the finite human mode? Could that come about without an 
infinite violence to the organism of the divine life, the inmost 
constitution of the Godhead? We do not see how it could 
occur at less cost. And who that has any faith in the divine 
immutability would care to suppose an interference on that 
scale with the eternal and essential form of the divine life? 
The theory of Ebrard may evade this difficulty by its sup- 
position of a dual mode of subsistence of the same subject. 
But this supposition itself is most difficult to justify on the 
ground of reason. Who can think of the same identical 
subject as at once perfect and subject to growth, omniscient 
and gradually adding to a finite sum of knowledge? More- 
over, if it were possible to evade this difficulty, the Ebrardian 
view would not bring us to the goal of christological con- 


348 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


struction. To suppose the Logos to have one mode of being 
in the Trinity and another contemporaneously in Christ 
Jesus suggests a duality of consciousness which needs still 
to be resolved before the divine and the human can appear 
to be brought into complete personal unity. It would, in- 
deed, obviate the apparent occasion for a duality in con- 
sciousness, if the humanity of Christ should be regarded as 
simply the continuous act or energizing of the Logos. But 
in that event ethical manhood seems to go by the board. 
The Son of man becomes an unsubstantial entity, to which 
the acquirement and maintenance of an ethical character 
must be quite foreign, since it is destitute of all capacity for 
free movement, being produced in the totality of its being 
and its states moment by moment. 

Once more, the radical kenotic theory, as commonly held, 
encounters very grave difficulties in its assumption that 
divine attributes may be subject to arrest and practically 
cancelled in respect of operation. Doubtless it is to be 
granted that there is in God a power of self-limitation. By 
adopting a specific world-order or economy within the world 
He puts up a bar against the introduction of a contrasted 
order, or economy. But self-limitation does not mean the 
possibility of self-cancellation. Now, how much less than 
self-cancellation is the repression of a power or attribute 
fundamentally descriptive of Deity? Is it anything else 
than a palpable contradiction for indefectible holiness to pass 
over into temptable and mutable goodness? Is it rationally 
conceivable that a Being who has constitutionally a perfectly 
luminous self-consciousness and an all-comprehending intu- 
ition of objective reality could be divested of either the one 
or the other? What less than a constant exercise of infinite 
power would be equal to this infinite veiling of an infinite 
subject? We are not able to understand. It strikes us that 
a constant use of omnipotence would be in requisition to keep 
up the depotentiation supposed by the radical doctrine of 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 349 


kenosis, and that consequently the doctrine is self-can- 
celling.1 

We do not find that advocates of the radical kenotic theory 
deal successfully with these difficulties. In general they are 
chargeable with this error: They assume a much too loose 
relation between divine modes and divine essence, speaking 
of the two as though they might very well be separable. 
Thus Thomasius tells us that such modes (or attributes) as 
omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence have relation 
to the world, that God gave them to Himself, and accord- 
ingly can be thought of as relinquishing them. Now this is 
a misleading representation, as being an over-statement of 
the truth. The world is but the sphere of the manifestation 
of the abilities or characteristics expressed by the terms in 
question. The manifestation is unmistakably grounded in 
that which is intrinsic to the divine nature. Given the 
world, and the divine nature must be manifested in all-com- 
prehending power, knowledge, and presence. This is the 
imperative demand of divine perfection and supremacy, as 
these are recognized in theistic thinking. In short, it in- 
volves a violent diremption to separate between modes and 
essence. The characteristic modes of divine consciousness 
and of divine relationship to creaturely reality are the out- 
flow of the divine essence, the dictate of the intrinsic nature 
of Deity. 

Again, the champions of the radical kenotic theory make 
too little account of the contrast between an eternal and 
perfect Being and a mere creature in respect of the element 
of contingency. Because a finite created person may pass 
from one state to another, from an active to a passive con- 
dition, from waking to sleeping, from vivid self-awareness to 
a vague or vanishing consciousness of self, there is no proper 


ED RE Ce a es A iE RE ae 

1 This consideration is thus put by John Caird: ‘‘The power that represses infinite 
power cannot be itself less than infinite. The notion of the self-limitation of an omnip- 
otent Being is one that dissolves in the very attempt to grasp it.” (Fundamental Ideas 
of Christianity, IT, 128), 


350 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


warrant for supposing that an infinite and eternal Person, 
a God who has life in absolute fullness, a God who is light and 
in whom is no darkness at all, is a subject for such transi- 
tions. The limitless perfections of such a Being logically 
exclude the opposed imperfections. In short, rational diffi- 
culties of the most insuperable order seem to be arrayed 
against the radical kenotic theory. 

The unsatisfactory outcome of such attempts to construe 
the person of Christ, as have been sketched above, have 
inclined some theologians to forego effort at positive christo- 
logical construction as being likely to be abortive. This was 
the position taken by Albrecht Ritschl. As he contended, 
and as the important school which he founded in Germany 
has maintained, it is inadvisable to go back of the historical 
manifestation of Christ and attempt metaphysically to con- 
strue His person. The wise thing to do is simply to take 
Him at His practical value. It is enough for us to recognize 
that He asserts an unlimited moral lordship and has for us 
the practical worth of divinity. 

Now, it is not difficult, at least in some of our moods, to 
yield a measure of sympathy to the Ritschlian standpoint. 
It seems, at first sight, to afford desirable relief from the 
burden of christological construction. Still there are good 
reasons for not coveting or accepting relief, at least perma- 
nently, on such a basis. It is no easy matter to hang up 
definitely the demand for metaphysical construction. In fact, 
to occupy simply the so-called practical point of view is in 
the long run quite decidedly impracticable. The prying 
human mind will begin to inquire for the rational ground 
of postulating such an extraordinary significance in the his- 
torical Christ. The question of intrinsic nature and essen- 
tial relation to the Godhead will obtrude itself sooner or 
later. The logical implications of the scriptural declarations 
on the transcendent relationship and functions of Christ 
will claim resolute scrutiny and distinct acknowledgment. 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 351 


Moreover, to leave the subject in vague outline is to open 
the door to an unregulated drift, since it is next to impos- 
sible for the mind to play the agnostic with steadfastness 
and consistency. The probable result of such a christo- 
logical policy has been well expressed by D. W. Forrest. 
“‘He who attributes to Jesus,” he says, ‘‘the unique pre- 
éminence which the Ritschlians assign to Him can not at 
the same time treat Him as requiring no more explanation 
than any other historical figure, and must either rise to such 
a conception as will vindicate the impression, or sooner or 
later discard the impression itself as subjective and illusory.”’ ! 
Let it be observed that our criticism of the Ritschlian 
theory relates not to the mere fact of its harboring an ag- 
nostic element, but rather to the gratuitous measure of the 
agnosticism which it represents. The theory falls short of 
the warrant, not to say of the demand, of revelation. The 
New Testament may not enlighten us as to how the factors 
in the person of Christ fall into harmonious interrelation; 
but it gives the factors—the human and the divine co-effi- 
cients—with sufficient distinctness. It is an intemperate 
agnosticism which ignores either one of the factors. It may 
be a legitimate agnosticism which shuns to dogmatize con- 
fidently on the mode of their union and reconciliation. 


V.—GROUNDS OF PREFERENCE FOR THE CATHOLIC THEORY 
OF AN UNIQUE CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONSHIP 
OF THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN 
IN CHRIST. 


Before the list of these grounds is given two or three pre- 
liminary considerations may properly be mentioned. The 
first of these is the quite indisputable truth that space 
inclusion is foreign to the legitimate conception of the in- 
carnation, and is to be replaced by the idea of organic con- 


1The Christ of History and Experience, p. 171. 


352 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


nection or unique relationship. There is absolutely no oc- 
casion to imagine the divine to have been locally confined. 
A peculiar union of the same with the humanity of Christ 
is all that is demanded. A second preliminary consideration 
gives emphasis to the catholic belief that the human factor 
was constituted in union with the divine. We are not to 
suppose that it ever existed as an independent subject, but 
rather that from its initiation it was uniquely conjoined with 
the divine in Christ, and by virtue of this union received 
extraordinary stimulus and guidance in ascending toward 
the plane of divine wisdom, love, and righteousness. One 
further consideration may appropriately precede our con- 
sideration of the grounds of preference for the catholic theory, 
namely, the truth that a close union with the divine need not 
be thought of as interfering with the integrity of the human 
nature in Christ. Analogy assures us of this much. The 
holiest and most inspired man, the man in whom the Holy 
Spirit works with the greatest efficiency, as truly retains his 
human identity as does the one who is least receptive of His 
influence. This follows from the consistent method of the 
Holy Spirit in always respecting the God-given nature of 
man, or in resorting to no operation out of harmony with his 
constitution. So the divine in Christ, we may assume, 
respects its self-ordained bounds, and does not, as by the 
weight of a superior mass, overbear the human nature. In- 
deed, we should not be proceeding without rational warrant 
should we conclude that peculiar closeness of union with the 
divine, on the part of the human factor in Christ, furnished 
for its ideal development the most favorable ground pos- 
sible! In the light of this truth one may be justified in 


1A kindred point of view is contained in the following words of an eminent writer: 
**Instead of the presence and action of God in the human spirit involving an impossible 
dualism, or a suppressing of human. individuality, the true conception is rather that the 
divine life is the condition of the human, the atmosphere in which alone all spiritual life 
can exist, and that it is only in union with God that the individual spirit can realize itself 
and become possessor of the latent wealth of intelligence and goodness that pertains 
to it. It is true, indeed, that there is something unique in the person of Christ, and that 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 353 


entertaining a very qualified appreciation for such christo- 
logical schemes as the Apollinarian and the Monothelite; 
and there is the less motive to take up with these schemes 
since their curtailment of Christ’s humanity excludes the 
intelligible ground for explaining the reality of the tempta- 
tion attributed to Him in the Gospels. This order of ex- 
perience becomes an enigma apart from the presence in Him 
of a finite soul and a finite will. Scripturally and rationally 
the divine can not be regarded as in itself temptable. 

That the catholic theory, which assumes no real meta- 
morphosis of either the humanity or the divinity in Christ, 
but postulates simply an unique constitutional union of the 
two, is unburdened with mystery, can not be urged. A real 
difficulty is involved in attempting to construe unity of 
person, in accord with its premises.1. There are considera- 
tions, however, which may help to reconcile us to the theory 
in spite of this difficulty. 

In the first place, it is to be observed that as respects 
ability to meet the difficulty in question the catholic theory 
is not placed at a disadvantage as compared with any other 
theory which acknowledges both the humanity and the 
divinity of Christ. The competing theories secure no van- 
tage ground for construing unity of person save as they 
abridge either manhood or divinity. 





a participation in the being and life of God can be predicated of Him as distinguished 
from all other members of the human race. But, however true it may be that the rela- 
tion of the divine and the human in the person of Christ transcends, in one sense, all 
earthly parallel, it must yet be a union of which by its very structure and essence hu- 
manity is capable.’’ (John Caird, The Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, pp. 158, 159.) 


1 Probably no theologian would care to challenge the propriety of pushing as far ag 
possible toward this goal. It is to be observed, however, that one and another have 
found reasons for qualifying the demand for construing strict unity of consciousness in 
Christ. Thus James Orr says: ‘‘ There is an immanent presence of God in nature, but there 
is also a transcendent existence of God beyond nature. So the divine Son took upon Him 
our nature with its human limits, but above and beyond that, if we may so express it, 
was the vast ‘over-soul’ of His divine consciousness. Even human psychology, in making 
us more familiar than we were with the idea of different strata of consciousness even in 
the same personal being, gives us a hint which need not be lost." (The Christian View of 
God and the World, p. 281. Compare H, C. Powell, The Principle of the Incarnation, 


pp. 170 ff.) 


354 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


In the second place, let it be noted that it is possible to 
pay by far too great a price for a conceptual unity in relation 
to Christ’s person. No thoughtful Christian, we think, 
would care to deny that it is more important to conserve the 
great values in Christ than it is to secure a perfectly intelli- 
gible ground of unity in Him. We are greatly enriched in 
the thought of Him as brother, as a veritable participator 
in human nature and lot. We are greatly encouraged and 
inspired by the thought of Him as Lord, having all power 
in heaven and earth, competent to subdue the last enemy, 
and worthy to receive the doxology of an assembled uni- 
verse. Who would consider it a wise procedure to sacrifice 
either the brother or the Lord in Christ just for the sake of 
simplifying the intellectual diagram of His person? The 
simplified diagram is doubtless a thing to be desired; but if 
we gain it at the expense of excluding a capital treasure the 
exchange is far from being warrantable. It is a bad bargain 
which the determinist drives with his own mind when, in order 
to gain a picture of undivided sovereignty, he sacrifices 
human freedom and makes God the sole agent. He gets 
unity, but at the expense of denying the spontaneous con- 
victions of men and shrivelling up their greatness as pos- 
sessors of moral sovereignty. So it is possible to get a uni- 
fied intellectual view of Christ at far too great a sacrifice, 
a cost falling little short of religious bankruptcy. Rather 
than impoverish ourselves by surrendering either aspect 
of the Redeemer we might better follow the example of the 
fourth evangelist and of the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, who strongly sketched both the human and the 
transcendent features of their Lord and Master without 
formal attempt at reconciliation. 

In the third place, we may urge in behalf of the catholic 
theory of unique constitutional relationship that this theory 
need not be regarded as necessarily involving such a dualism 
as must be afflictive to our contemplation. While the in- 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 355 


carnation may have been constituted at a given point, in the 
sense that the special interrelation between the humanity 
and the divinity was instituted at that point, it does not 
follow that the complete result of the relation was realized 
at once. It might be that during the season of earthly 
growth, trial, and tension the human soul of Jesus might be 
a subject for impulses involving some struggle with the 
divine factor in His life and consciousness. But we are 
not required to presume upon any such element of dualism 
in perpetuity. On the contrary, we may conceive that 
Christ advanced to a stage where His whole finite psychical 
nature became, at the least, as truly instrumental as our 
bodies are to our souls—instrumental, that is, to the higher 
coefficient in His being, its thought perfectly responsive to 
the stimulus of the divine light, its power of will absorbed 
in a habitude of perfect surrender to a higher will. Meta- 
physically the possibility of initiative might be said to remain 
with the finite psychical nature, just as metaphysically we 
suppose the capability of evil choice may remain in the 
glorified saint in heaven. But, as we feel authorized to 
place the latter possibility outside the sphere of practical 
consideration, so we may dispose of the former possibility, 
and think of the heavenly humanity of Christ as being in 
its whole range truly instrumental to His divine intelligence 
and will, and so not really interfering with the unity of His 
personal life. At least we are not confronted with any 
such dualism as needs seriously to trouble our souls. 

In the fourth place, we may claim in behalf of the catholic 
theory that it is agreeable to any exegetical demand which 


1A specially emphatic putting of this idea of a practical coalescence of the human 
will in Christ with the divine appears in the conclusion that the former, through absolute 
adherence to the Logos, ceased in fact to be a distinct principle of action, and is to be 
described rather under the category of nature than under that of personal principle. So 
argued Antonio Rosmini (Introduzione del Vangelo secondo Giovanni, p. 281). If this 
language be taken as representing an ultimate development, lying beyond the period of 
earthly trial, it need not necessarily be accused of giving expression to an impossible sup- 
position, though a doubt may arise in some minds as to whether the supposition is worth 
while, 


356 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


is presented for the admission of limitations of the knowledge 
of the incarnate Christ.t The appearance of limitations may 
be explained without appeal to a metaphysical depotentiation 
of the Logos, such as is assumed in the radical doctrine of 
kenosis. However inclusive may have been the content of 
the Logos, in order to pass out of the timeless sphere into 
the forms of human conception and speech, it needed to be 
mediated through the finite psychical nature in Christ; and 
this nature, just because it was finite, was under stress to 
mediate the divine content in more or less of a partitive and 
successive fashion. So the Christ of history appears, and 
could not well escape appearing, under certain limitations. 

A special way of expressing this ground of limitation has 
recently been commended to Christian judgment. The rep- 
resentation has been put forth that the divine in Christ (the 
eternal Logos) held to His humanity a relation analogous 
to that which the sub-conscious range in our personality 
holds to the sphere of the conscious life. The former was 
joined to the latter by an extraordinary bond, and contributed 
to it of its own content, being limited, however, in its im- 
partations by the measure of receptivity which was charac- 
teristic of the finite pyschical nature.? For our part, we 
should prefer to speak of the divine as fulfilling, not the rdle 
of the sub-conscious, but rather the function of an over- 
soul uniquely related to the humanity of Christ and uniquely 
contributory to its furnishing for an unexampled mission. 
Of either form of expression the proper office is to point to 
an explanation of the fact that the self-consciousness of 
Christ was, at least in a relative sense, a divine-human con- 
sciousness, containing on the one hand transcendent ele- 
ments, and on the other tokens of limitation. That repre- 
sentations of the one kind or the other supply a full solution 
of the christological problem would be claiming too much. 





1 Luke ti. 52; Matt. xxiv. 36. 
1 Sanday, Christologies Ancient and Modern, 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 357 


They are useful in construing the actual facts of Christ's 
manifestation on the field of history, but leave room for 
further inquiry as to how the diverse factors in Him may be 
regarded as concordant with the idea of personal unity. 

One more consideration may serve to bespeak, if not favor, 
at least tolerance, for the doctrine of unique relationship. 
Analogy suggests that a margin of mystery might be expected 
to pertain to the union of the divine and the creaturely 
factors in Christ. A certain mystery pertains to the union 
of such factors in other relations. It taxes us to reconcile 
in our thought the timeless life of God with a practical re- 
Jation on His part to the time sphere. It also puts a strain 
upon our power of rational insight to see how our funda- 
mental and incessant dependence upon God is in full harmony 
with our veritable autonomy or faculty of independent ac- 
tion. If in neither of these instances do we feel called upon 
to sacrifice one side of a commonly accepted truth because 
of the difficulty of reconciling it with another side, it may 
be in line with sober reason to cleave to both of the great 
factors in Christ’s person, as recognized in catholic doctrine, 
though it should be necessary to waive proper insight into the 
manner of their harmonious coéxistence. Moreover, it be- 
comes us to remember that the unique as such lies for us 
beyond the sphere of complete insight. Supposing that 
among those who have held a place in our race Jesus, the 
Christ, subsisted in a unique relation to the divine—a suppo- 
sition which, as Lotze says, is entirely admissible from a 
rational point of view—we simply make a sane response to 
the conditions in forbearing to expect a clear understanding 
of the mode of that relation. 

At the close of all constructive effort in relation to chris- 
tology the discreet thinker will be inclined to recall the re- 
mark of one of the early fathers, that the mystery of Christ’s 
person is beyond human grasp, and very likely also “beyond 





1 Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, pp. 149, 150, 


358 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


the grasp of the entire creation of celestial powers.’”"' Divine 
art is too fine and subtle for our analysis. No higher con- 
summation of this art can be offered to our contemplation than 
the union of the divine and the human in Christ. Whatever 
may be the difficulty about reconciling them in the abstract 
formula, they are woven together most harmoniously in the 
concrete manifestation of the Redeemer. A magnificent sky, 
with its suggestions of infinite depths, could not be more 
perfectly mated with a beautiful and amiable landscape than 
is the divine with the human in the gospel picture of Christ. 

A formal christological definition scarcely seems in place at 
this stage. If, however, it be demanded, let it be expressed 
in these terms: In Jesus Christ we contemplate the unique 
meeting-point of the human and the divine on the field of 
history—a being in whom the human and the divine subsist 
together in extraordinary and wonderful, but not unnatural, 
union. 


VI.—DESIGN OF THE INCARNATION. 


In the New Testament the distinctive motive for the incar- 
nation is undoubtedly set forth as the salvation of men. But 
the exclusive stress upon this motive may be explained by the 
fact that the Bible is specifically a book of salvation, and 
ignores rather than denies points of view which have no per- 
ceptible relation to its great theme. There is, accordingly, a 
place for any rational considerations which support the con- 
clusion that the incarnation was a part of God’s original 
scheme, and would have occurred even though man had not 
fallen. As one of the principal of these considerations, the 
truth has been urged that Christianity is the absolute religion, 
that the person of the God-man is central to Christianity, and 
that consequently the union of the Son of God with a human 
nature can not consistently be made dependent upon the con- 
tingent facts of sin and the need of redemption. To this 


1 Origen, De Prin. II. 61. 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 359 


argument the thought may be added, that the salvation of 
men from sin cannot be regarded as the ultimate aim, but 
rather as the antecedent to an eternal kingdom of righteous- 
ness, and that of this holy fellowship the perfectly suitable 
bond and centre is one who unites in himself the divine and 
the creaturely natures. Reasons of so much cogency as these 
may at least make us tolerant of the supposition that the 
incarnation did not hinge upon man’s apostasy, though its 
relation to the redemptive work ought to be for us, as for the 
sacred writers, the theme of largest and most grateful con- 
templation. 


360 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


CHAPTER ir, 


THE WORK OF CHRIST, ESPECIALLY IN THE PHASE OF 
RECONCILIATION OR ATONEMENT. 


I.— A GENERAL GLANCE AT THE OFFICES OF CHRIST. 


THE great factors in the Jewish communion — the kingly, 
the priestly, and the prophetical_— served as means for pro- 
jecting the Messianic ideal. New Testament thought, there- 
fore, was flowing into prepared molds when it represented 
Christ as king, prophet, and priest. This representation too, 
was happily descriptive of Christ's work as it must ever appear 
in a comprehensive glance. 

While the threefold distinction in Christ’s offices is in no 
wise artificial, it can easily be pushed into artificiality by being 
overdrawn. The distinction does not imply that one stage in 
the Redeemer’s life was wholly devoted to one office, and an- 
other stage to a different office. Indeed, the three offices may 
be discerned in a single act or event. Thus the death of 
Christ was at once kingly, prophetical, and priestly. It was 
kingly since it was accompanied by the consciousness that no 
man had power to take away His life, whereas it belonged 
to His sovereignty to lay it down and to take it up again; 
it was prophetical as conveying a supreme lesson in religious 
truth; and it was priestly as being a sacrifice for the remission 
of sins. In general, it may be said that the three offices are 
continually coming to manifestation in the New Testament 
record, though in some passages one is more conspicuous than 
another. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 361 


The imagination more easily attaches the kingly character 
to the ascended Christ than to the Son of Man who was 
despised and rejected of men, and who testified of Himself 
that He had not where to lay His head. It looks sooner to 
the plane of the Apocalyptic visions for tokens of kingship 
than to the simple narratives of the Gospels. Nevertheless, 
it requires no searching scrutiny to discover kingly lineaments 
in Christ as He trod the path of His earthly ministry. In the 
authoritative tone of His speech, in the dignity of His silence 
before accusers, in the calm assurance with which He held 
forth the loftiest blessings to His followers, in the hush of 
winds and waves before His rebuke, in His mastery over dis- 
ease and death, in His clothing of apostles with powers of 
administration, in His establishment of ordinances to be per- 
petually observed, in His assertion of the prerogative to forgive 
sins, in His requirement that every relationship, whether of 
father, mother, sister, or brother, should be subordinated to 
loyal devotion to Himself — in all these things His essential 
royalty was revealed. Even in His lowest humiliation the 
kingly character was not denied, for humiliation itself was with 
Him a means of assured victory. He knew that by being 
nailed to the cross His hand would be prepared for limitless 
dominion over the hearts of men. Those who apprehend the 
true relation between love and sovereignty will not regard Him 
as less regal in dying than in the act of raising the dead and 
judging the gathered nations. 

The revelation of Christ’s kingly character may be regarded 
as an element in the perfection of His prophetical office, or 
teaching function. To disclose the King was to make known, 
in virtue of essential correspondence, the highest and best re- 
specting the kingdom. In so far, then, as the kingdom of God 
was the great theme of prophecy, the aim of prophetical dis- 
course was most perfectly fulfilled when Christ came and 
mirrored in His person the principles of divine rule. 

The plane of Christ’s prophetical office was evidently far 


362 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


higher than that occupied by any of the preceding prophets. 
They spoke as servants to whom the Supreme Master had in 
some part revealed His purposes. Christ spoke as the Son 
of the house, to whom the counsels of divine wisdom and grace 
were fully known. They spoke as heralds and forerunners. 
Christ spoke as the personal fulfillment of their highest pre- 
sentiments and anticipations. Their principal theme was above 
and beyond themselves. Christ's theme was in no small de- 
gree His own person and work, for therein lay that which was 
of most consequence for men to know. 

As regards the predictive element, it was distinctive of 
Christ’s prophetical vocation that His character and experi- 
ences, no less than His words, cast a clear light upon the fu- 
ture. His foiling of the tempter, His overcoming the world, the 
ethical perfection of His manhood, His unclouded communion 
with the Father, His resurrection and glorification constitute 
together a most vivid and effective picture of the possibilities 
and certainties of human destiny. To view the Redeemer in 
any one of these respects is to read a luminous prophecy. 

There is New Testament warrant for connecting the pro- 
phetical office of Christ with other regions than the earthly. 
Very little indeed is said about His preaching in the place of 
departed spirits; but the few verses that can be cited upon 
the subject fairly imply that the fact of such preaching was 
recognized in apostolic thinking. In spite of earnest efforts, 
on the part of exegetes and dogmatists, to overcome this im- 
plication, it still adheres to these sentences of Peter: ‘Christ 
also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, 
that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the 
flesh, but quickened in the spirit; in which also He went 
and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were 
disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the 
days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing... . Unto this 
end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might 
be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 363 


to God in the spirit.”! The being judged according to men 
in the flesh is reasonably taken as equivalent to undergoing 
sentence of death, so that the meaning of the clause amounts 
to this: in order that they, having undergone judgment in the 
experience of bodily death, may in spirit be alive. The sense 
in which the terms “ flesh ”’ and “ spirit’ are to be taken here 
(iv. 6) is unambiguous; these terms evidently put in contrast 
the sensuous and the supersensuous nature of man. Now the 
same terms occur above (ill. 19), and the apparent connection 
between the two instances in the thought of the apostle favors 
the conclusion that the terms express the same antithesis in 
the one case as in the other; that is, that the spirit in which 
Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison is not to be 
regarded as the Holy Spirit, but as His pneumatic nature 
which, notwithstanding the death of the body, was still vital 
and the means of an active ministry. This conclusion is also 
sustained by the order of the clauses, which naturally suggests 
that the preaching took place after and in spite of the destruc- 
tion of the flesh. It is indeed somewhat strange that Peter 
should represent the preaching as being directed to a particu- 
lar group among the dead. But the enigma is not helped 
appreciably if, counter to the suggestion of the connected 
verses, we put living antediluvians in place of the dead, and 
suppose that Christ’s preaching to the former was effected 
through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Peter’s reason for 
limiting the preaching to a special party still requires explana- 
tion. Surely Christ was preaching to disobedient men, through 
His inspired ministers, in all the centuries covered by Jewish 
prophecy. Why then, did the apostle limit his reference to a 
particular group of sinners? If it be said that he wished to 
bring in a mention of the flood to illustrate the office of bap- 
tism (iii. 20, 21), and went somewhat aside for this purpose, 
it is to be answered: Very possibly this is true; but in that 


1 1 Pet. iii. 18-20, iv. 6. 


364 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


event he had just the same occasion to limit the scope of the 
preaching, whether he regarded its subjects as the spirits of 
the dead or as living men. The very fact that he calls thern 
‘spirits '’ (rvevwara) is adverse to the supposition that they 
were regarded as living men at the time of the preaching. 
Moreover, an objection to throwing back the preaching to the 
eve of the flood is found in the connection of the word “afore- 
time’ (ore) with the disobedience of the party in question, 
rather than with the preaching to them, as though the two 
events were separated by an interval of time. 

Among the earlier Lutheran divines there was a tendency 
to regard Christ’s descent into Hades as a means of sig- 
nalizing His triumph over death and Satan. But this view 
exceeds the scriptural representation, which makes note only 
of the prophetical function of preaching in the region of 
the dead. 

It is not at all fanciful to suppose that in a direct sense the 
prophetical office of Christ is fulfilled in heaven, His divine- 
human person being a medium of continuous illustration and 
revelation of the highest and holiest truth. That in an in- 
direct sense He still fulfills the prophetical office is plainly 
implied by His declaration respecting the promised Comforter: 
‘“When He, the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you 
into all the truth; for He shall not speak from Himself; but 
what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak; 
and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. 
He shall glorify me: for He shall take of mine, and shall 
declare it unto you.” ! 

While the work of Christ had a certain redemptive efficacy 
in its kingly and prophetical character, it had also a special 
_ virtue as an antidote to sin which is not suggested by either 
of these terms, a virtue which is described only as Christ is 
named the great High Priest of humanity. This is a proposi- 


1 John xvi. 13, 14. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 365 


tion which only needs to be stated here, since its proof and 
illustration belong to the general aim of the present chapter. 

The summit of Christ’s priestly vocation was reached in His 
sacrifice upon the cross ; but we see there neither its beginning 
nor itsend. The burden of His sacrificial office was upon His 
spirit long before the shedding of His blood, and though in one 
sense His sacrifice was accomplished once for all, it is perpet- 
ually memorialized by His presence in heaven. The divine 
glance, so to speak, cannot reach to the ill desert of sinners 
or imperfect believers upon the earth without first resting 
upon Him who died for them. Accordingly, in the pictorial 
language of the sacred writer He is described as ever living 
to make intercession for them that draw near unto God 
through Him.! This is much the same as saying that His 
presence in the nature which was the medium of His passion 
perpetually memorializes before the throne of judgment and 
justice the great sacrifice which He accomplished in behalf of 
men in the time of His humiliation. 

The thought lies very near at hand that no one of the three 
offices of Christ can be neglected without prejudicial results. 
The Church which forgets the kingly office of its Head is 
likely to be wanting in victorious confidence, while the Church 
which occupies its thought mainly with this office is liable to 
gravitate toward an unethical exaltation of power, and to be 
too accessible to the temptations of hierarchical pride and 
assumption. To lay the whole stress upon the prophetical 
or teaching function, to the slighting of the sacrificial, involves 
an inadequate education of the consciousness of sin, and results 
in a feebler sense of dependence upon Christ than ought, for 
his own good, to characterize the redeemed man. A Church 
that confines itself to this point of view will, in the long run, 
exhibit a type of religion which is lacking in depth and vitality 
of incentive. On the other hand. to neglect Christ as king 


-_ 


1 Heb. vii. 25. 


366 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


and enlightener, and to rest in an exclusive way upon His 
priestly mediation, tends to an insufficient regard for the de- 
mands of practical activity, not to say, to an antinomian lassi- 
tude. A Church which knows its vocation to bring in the 
divine kingdom, and has the needful disposition for fulfilling 
that vocation, will keep close to Christ as king, as prophet, 
and as priest. 


II. — CANONS FOR INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURAL REFER- 
ENCES TO THE WoRK OF ATONEMENT OR RECONCILATION. 


In attempting a closer view of Christ’s priestly mediation, 
that is, of His work of reconcilation or atonement, it 1s appro- 
priate, first of all, to give some heed to principles of interpre- 
tation.! 

As respects the Old Testament, it is quite evident that we 
ought to be cautious about reading into it conceptions which 
belong to the advanced ground of New Testament thought. 
Some place may indeed be given to the well-established pre- 
supposition that the Old Testament system reaches in general 
in the direction of the new dispensation, so that it is con- 
ceivable that some light may be reflected back from the more 
developed teaching in the latter. Still, in consideration of a 
possible advance to improved, not to say entirely new, points 
of view, a determination of Old Testament doctrine in this 
connection should rest mainly upon an analysis and comparison 
of its own contents. 

In order to gain from the examination a serviceable basis of 
dogmatic construction, it is of importance to note both the 
main elements in the significance of the sacrificial ritual of 


a a nn ec RR 


1 The use of the terms reconciliation and atonement interchangeably may be 
regarded as a token that we employ the latter in its broader significance. In this 
sense anything intrinsically suited and directed to the removing of obstacles to 
unity or fellowship may be styled a means of atonement. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 367 


the Old Testament and the extent to which that ritual can 
be regarded as a genuine medium for revealing fundamental 
truth, and not merely as an accidental and temporary instru- 
ment of religious discipline or edification. 

On the first of these points enough divergence of views has 
occurred to indicate that the subject is not quite so trans- 
parent as has sometimes been assumed. Even so general a 
question as whether the sacrificial system emphasized man’s 
standing and character as that of a sinner before God, needing 
protection against the consequences of his sins, has not called 
forth a perfectly unanimous judgment. According to Ritschl, 
the Old Testament idea is that man simply in his creaturely 
character, his essential feebleness and transitoriness, cannot 
endure the greatness of God, and so needs some defense when 
he comes into His majestic presence. The sacrifices provided 
what was apprehended to be such a defense, a shield to men 
in their creaturely infirmity and not specially in their char- 
acter as trangressors. A reference to sin-defilement, it is true, 
cannot be denied to certain orders of sacrifices, namely, the 
sin and trespass offerings, but the reference here is rather to 
impurity in the Levitical sense than to sin proper.1 

This view, however, is little adapted to carry conviction. 
While it is true that the sacrificial system did not assume to 
apply to the more heinous offenses, no atonement being con- 
templated for sins which were described as committed with 
a “high hand,” it is contrary to the evidence not to give that 
system, as a whole, a very positive association with the exi- 
gencies created by sin and guilt before God. The ethical 
intensity, which is certainly characteristic of the Old Testa- 
ment, does not allow the notion of God’s holiness proper to 
recede, so much as Ritschl’s theory supposes, behind that 
of His overpowering greatness. A more specific objection to 





1 Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versdhnung, Band II. 
Kap. iii. 


ao 


368 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


the theory is found in the peculiarities of the sacrificial appoint- 
ments and the general use of the term which is selected to 
describe the aim or effect of sacrifice. On these grounds, 
Riehm contends, and it seems to us successfully, that the 
character in man which the sacrificial system contemplates is 
not that of mere creaturely weakness and transitoriness, but 
preéminently, if not exclusively, that of sin-defilement. “ Only 
on the presupposition,” he says, “ valid for the whole sacrificial 
system, of the presence of sin-defilement, is the fact explained 
that on greater sacrificial occasions, when different kinds of 
offerings are rendered in conjunction with one another, there 
is always at the same time a sin-offering presented; that 
further the burnt-offering in certain cases serves as a supple- 
ment to the sin-offering, and so has part in its design.?... 
Also in 1 Sam. iii. 14, it is presupposed that the protecting 
covering which is afforded in the sacrificial institution has to do 
in general with security against the consequences of offenses. 
Moreover, how could \®D (to make atonement), in its appli- 
cation apart from divine worship, have undeniably such a 
thoroughly dominant reference to sin and guilt, if that sense 
was foreign to the same in its application to divine worship, or 
was only a side meaning added, especially in connection with 
the sin and trespass offerings, to its proper significance ?” ? 

Holding then that the sacrificial system, in general, mirrored 
man’s standing as a sinner, or impure being, in need of pro- 
tection before the holy God, we have to inquire how the system 
was regarded in Old Testament thought as meeting this need. 
It is not unnatural to suppose that the devotement of the sac- 
rificial victims to death was accounted a means of expiation. 

1 Lev. v. 10, xii. 7, 8, xv. 15, 303 Num. vii. 11; Lev. xiv. 19, 20; Num. xv. 
24N 26; Vib 12, 21% 

2 Altestamentliche Theologie, pp. 131, 132, Compare August Dillmann, 
Handbuch der altestamentlichen Theologie, pp. 465-474; Hermann Schultz, Old 
Testament Theology, I. 373-400. Note among additional biblical references, Lev. 


iv. 20, 26, 31, 35, v. 6, vi. I-7, x. 17; Num. xvi. 46-48; 2 Sam. xxi. 3; Heb, 
ix, 22. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 369 


Death appears as the special penalty which was denounced 
against sin at the beginning, so that the slaying of the victims 
would seem aptly to typify that they took the doom which be- 
longed to the offerers. Moreover, the act of the offerers, in lay- 
ing their hands upon the heads of the victims just before they 
were slain, might be regarded as implying that they were thus 
made the bearers of the ill-desert which the sacrificial rites 
were designed to cover. But this inference fails of adequate 
confirmation in the Old Testament representations. The 
death of the victims appears there not so much the proper 
means of atonement as its necessary antecedent. A survey of 
the whole list of passages which speak of making atonemeut 
by sacrifices cannot fail to enforce the impression that this was 
conceived to consist not so much in the act of slaying as in the 
use which was made of the freshly slain victims, and especially 
of their blood in the further prosecution of the sacrificial rite. 
The measure of significance which was attached to the lay- 
ing of hands upon the victims is well expressed by Oehler: 
“The offerer, by the laying on of hands, appoints the animal 
to be for him a medium and vehicle of atonement, thanks, or 
supplication, according to the designation of the offering with 
which at the time he wishes to appear before God. . . . The act 
of atonement at the offering, with which the specific priestly 
functions begin, commences not with the shedding of blood, but 
with the use of the shed blood.” ? 

It does not appear that atoning virtue was associated exclu- 
sively with the shed blood, as presented before the face of the 
Lord ; for, instances are recorded in which atonement is said to 
be made by means of unbloody sacrifices.? But these instances 

1 Ex. xxix. 33, 36, xxx. 10-16; Lev. i. 43 iv. 20-25, v. 6-19, vi. 30, Vil. 7, Vili. 34, 
ix. 7-11, x. 17, xii. 7, 8, xiv. 18-21, 29, 31, 49-53, Xv. 15, 30, xvi. 6-20, xvii. 11, 
xix. 22, xxiii. 27, 28; Num. v. 8, vi. 11, viii. 12. xv. 25, 28, xvi. 46, 47, xxv. 13, 
xxviii, 22, 30, xxix. 5, 11, xxxi. 50; 1 Chron. vi.49; 2 Chron. xxix. 24; Ezek. xlv. 


15, !7- 
2 Theology of the Old Testament, § 126. 
* Lev. v. 11-13; Num. xvi. 46, 47. 


$70 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


are exceptional, the unbloody offerings generally standing in 
a subordinate relation to the bloody or presupposing their per- 
formance. The general cast of the sacrificial ritual emphasizes 
the idea that atoning virtue, or power to cover sins, resides 
especially in the shed blood. 

The reason for attributing special virtue to the seen blood 
is indicated in only one passage, namely, Lev. xvii. 11, where 
it is said, ‘“‘ The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have 
given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your 
souls ; for it is the shed blood that maketh atonement by 
reason of the life.” That. is, the blood flowing warm from 
the victim was regarded as the bearer of its life. Viewed in 
this character it appeared at once as the most precious thing 
which the world afforded below the plane of man, and also 
emblematic of man’s life or soul. In presenting it, sin-defiled 
men invited the divine glance to rest upon a gift intrinsically 
precious and akin to their own life-principle, a gift which might 
check the severe scrutiny of God against their ill-desert and 
avert His judgment from their souls. In other words, it was 
fitted to give visible form to the idea of atonement, that is, of a 
protecting covering before God: for to cover is the root idea of 
the Hebrew word which is rendered into English by “making 
atonement’ (4BD). 

While the sacrificial victim was in a sense man’s gift to God, 
its virtue was not by any means regarded as determined by its 
cost to the offerer. In the prophetical writings the idea is abun- 
dantly scorned that the favor or clemency of Jehovah can be 
gained by mere commercial values.1 The appointments of the 
ceremonial law also indicate that the cost to the offerer was a 
very subordinate consideration where atonement was in view, 
since the sacrifices, like the sin-offerings, in which the idea of 
atonement was specially prominent, consisted generally of a 
single victim, and were a very slight tax upon the resources 





1 Ps, 1. 8-15; Isa. i. 10-19; Jer. vi. 20, xiv. 12; Amos v. 22. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 371 


of the rich. The virtue of the sacrifice lay rather in the in- 
trinsic and emblematic worth of the life-bearing blood and the 
gracious destination of the same, on the part of God, to the 
office of atonement. The latter is to be regarded as the ulti- 
mate foundation or effective source of sacrificial virtue, the life- 
bearing blood being chosen because of its congruous relation 
to the idea of atonement, or its fitness to impress upon the 
Israelites, by a visible lesson, truths which they needed to keep 
ever in mind respecting the holy God and His relations to men. 
The language of Lev. xvii. 11 is rather in line than otherwise 
with this point of view ; for the gracious determination of God 
is there specified as that which is back of the atoning rite, 
Jehovah saying of the sacrificial blood, “I have given it to you 
upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.” 

The more essential points in the sacrificial ritual may then 
be summarized as follows: (1) It emphasized the ill-desert of 
sinful men and the impossibility of their justifying themselves 
before God, (2) It showed that God was gracious, and was 
disposed to bring men into fellowship with Himself, notwith- 
standing the barriers which their sins interposed. (3) It re- 
vealed that the chosen method of grace with God was one 
giving emphasis to the claims of the divine holiness, along 
with the extension of clemency to the ill-deserving. 

This significance cannot be regarded as seriously abated by 
the fact that in one and another connection divine indulgence 
and favor seem to be elicited by other means than the sacrifi- 
cial! That God’s promises to the fathers should be exhibited 
as a ground of forbearance, that an office should be conceded 
to friendly intercession, that the indispensableness and virtue 
of inward repentance should be emphasized —all these things 
show only that sacrifices are not to be regarded as the whole of 
the divine economy in relation to Israel; they do not deny that 


1 Ex, xxxii. 11-14; Lev. xxvi. 40-45; 2 Kings xiii. 23; Ps. li, 16, 17, lxxix. 9, 
10, cvi. 23; Isa. xliii, 25, xlviii. 9, 10, lv. 7; Jer. v. I. 


372 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


the sacrificial ritual had a high significance and subserved an 
important function. 

From another side, however, the question may arise as to 
whether the dogmatic significance of the sacrificial system 
must not be regarded as quite seriously abated. Biblical criti- 
cism, it is said, shows that this system was the result of pro- 
gressive development, and that the completing stage was not 
reached till a comparatively late date in the history of Israel. 
How then, it may be asked, are we to know that the system 
was not so largely accidental as to have little or none of the 
worth which belongs to an authentic medium of divine truth ? 

The response to this question lies very largely in the con- 
siderations which have been given in the chapter on revelation. 
On the one hand, it may be conceded that in the vivid religious 
dialect of the Hebrews things were often referred to the direct 
agency of God, where the warrant for the reference was not so 
much His express command of the things in question as the 
undoubting conviction that they were agreeable to His will ; 
and that, accordingly, we are not debarred from supposing 
that human discretion was no inconsiderable factor in shaping 
the details of the sacrificial ritual. But, on the other hand, 
the evidence of a divine vocation in the Old Testament re- 
ligion as a whole, the dependence of its value upon a due 
balance of different elements, and its prophetical character, 
the anticipatory relation to New Testament truth which is 
bespoken for it in the references of Christ and the apostles, 
compel the conclusion that a factor so prominent as the sacri- 
ficial system, and so interwoven with the life and thought of 
{srael, was at least in its more essential features thoroughly 
in the providential order, a means chosen of God for the 
tuition of Israel and for the instruction of men to the end 
of time. Stress upon minute particulars may be quite un- 
warranted, but it is not arbitrary to see through the drapery 
of the sacrificial ritual as much truth as has been summarized 
in the three particulars mentioned above. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 373 


The conclusion that the sacrificial system of the Old Testa- 
ment is neither to be ignored as a mere human product, nor 
to be taken in the spirit of stringent technicality and literalism, 
furnishes the canon for interpreting the New Testament sac- 
rificial language, or its dialect of atonement. The propriety 
of taking the former in a broad rather than in a stringent 
way argues decidedly for the propriety of taking the latter 
in the same way. For, the New Testament writers came to 
the treatment of Christian themes with minds well filled with 
the altar images of the Old Testament. In popular imagina- 
tive language, discourse addressed quite as much to religious 
feeling as to sheer intellect, these images could hardly fail 
to be forthcoming. Apt vehicles they were for the truths of 
the new dispensation. But they did not come from the work- 
shop of a precise logic. As the originals from which they 
were borrowed, the Old Testament institutions of sacrifice, 
furnish a permanent lesson rather in their general character 
and trend than in the minutiz of ritual prescription, so in the 
New Testament application of these images essential truth is 
to be sought more in the general bearing of particulars than 
in individual items. Being thus taken in the broad, they evi- 
dently permit that, in connection with the data which they 
afford, much account should be made of the general points of 
view supplied by reason and revelation. 


IlI.— Points RESPECTING ATONEMENT WHICH ARE FAIRLY 
ESTABLISHED BY THE CONTENTS OF SCRIPTURE. 


In an effort to reach the essential import of the New Testa- 
ment references to the subject of atonement an aid may be 
rendered by a classification of passages. The following group- 
ing, it is believed, will serve to direct attention to the more 
important aspects. 


1. The sufferings and death of Christ are not represented 
25 


374 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


as being accidental, but, on the contrary, as part of the scheme 
set on foot by divine wisdom and grace for the salvation of 
men. Both in the words of Christ and in the apostolic refer- 
ences they are described as matters of forecast and beneficent 
design. 

«The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister and to give His life a ransom for many.” ! 

“TI have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I 
straitened till it be accomplished.” 2 

“He said unto them, Thus it is written that the Christ 
should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day.’’* 

«As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 
must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth 
may in Him have eternal life.’’4 

“JT am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down 
His life for the sheep. ... Therefore doth my Father love me, 
because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one 
taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have 
power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. 
This commandment have I received from my Father.’’® 

«Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say? Father 
save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this 
hour.”’ ® 

“We behold Him who hath been made a little lower than 
the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death 
crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He 
should taste death for every man. For it became Him, for 
whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in 
bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their 
salvation perfect through sufferings.” * 

«‘Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, 
He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that 


1 Matt. xx. 28. 3 Luke xxiv. 46. 5 John x. 11, 17, 18, 7 Heb. ii. 9, 10. 
2 Luke xii. 50. * John iii. 14, 15. 6 John xii. 27, 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 375 


through death He might bring to naught him that had the 
power of death, that is, the devil.’’! 

2. The sufferings of Christ, His death, and His shed blood 
are represented as being for sinners, or directed to the end of 
taking away sins. 

“He took bread, and when he had given thanks He brake 
it, and gave to them saying, This is my body which is given 
for you: this do in remembrance of me. And the cup in like 
manner after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in 
my blood, even that which is poured out for you.... The 
bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” ? 

‘«‘ While we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the 
ungodly. ... God commendeth His own love toward us, in that, 
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” ® 

«What the law could not do, in that it was weak through 
the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful 
flesh and as an offering for sin condemned sin in the flesh.’’4 

“He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up 
for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all 
things ?”’® 

“JT delivered unto you first of all that which also I re- 
ceived, how that Christ died for our sins according to the 
Scriptures.” ® 

“We thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died: 
and He died for all, that they which live should no longer live 
unto themselves but unto Him who for their sakes died and 
rose again.” 7 

«Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf ; 
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” ® 

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, 


1 Heb. ii. 14. See also Heb, ix. 26; Acts viii. 32-35; Rom. viii. 32; 1 John 
iv. 10, 

2 Luke xxii. 19, 20; John vi. 51. 

8 Rom. v. 6, 8. 5 Rom. viii. 32. 7 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. 

# Rom. viii. 3. 6 1 Cor. xv. 3. Si2 Commas, 


376 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


that He might deliver us out of this present evil world, accord- 
ing to the will of our God and Father. ’! 

‘‘God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining 
of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, 
that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with 
Him.” ? 

‘Inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and 
after this cometh judgment ; so Christ also, having been once 
offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time 
apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto salvation.” ® 

‘Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the 
tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteous- 
ness ; by whose stripes ye were healed.” # 

“TI saw, and behold a great multitude which no man could 
number, out of every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and 
tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, 
arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands... . And 
one of the elders answered, saying unto me, These which are 
arrayed in white robes, who are they, and whence came they ? 
And I say unto him, My lord, thou knowest. And he said to 
me, These are they which came out of the great tribulation, 
and they have washed their robes and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb.” ® 

3. Christ is described as a high priest, and His sufferings 
and death are represented as sacrificial. 

“He seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” ® 

‘It behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His 
brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest 
in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins 
of the people.” * 


1 Gal. i. 4. 2 1 Thess. v. 9, 10. > Heb. ix. 27, 28. 41 Pet. ii, 24. 

5 Rev. vii. 9, 13, 14. See also Matt. xxvi. 28; Rom. iv. 25; Gal. ii. 20; Heb. 
li. 9, 14, 153 1 Pet. iii, 18; Rev. i. 5, 6; Isa. liii. 4-6, 10-12. 

8 John i, 29. 1 Heb. ii. 17. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 377 


“ Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even 
as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sac- 
rificed, even Christ.” } 

«Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave Him- 
self up for us, an offering and a sacrifice, to God for an odor 
of a sweet smell.”’? 

“Having therefore, brethen, boldness to enter into the holy 
place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated 
for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, 
His flesh ; and having a great priest over the house of God; 
let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith.’’? 

« According to the law, I may almost say, all things are 
cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there 
is no remission. It was necessary, therefore, that the copies 
of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these ; 
but the heavenly things with better sacrifices than these. For 
Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in 
pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear be- 
fore the face of God for us: nor yet that He should offer 
Himself often ; as the high priest entereth into the holy place 
year by year with blood not his own ; else must He often have 
suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once at 
the end of the ages hath He been manifested to put away sin 
by the sacrifice of Himself.’ 4 

4. The sacrificial work of Christ which was consummated 
in His death is set forth as a ground of forgiveness or recon- 
ciliation. 

“This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many 
unto remission of sins,” ® 

“ Be it known unto you that through this man is proclaimed 
unto you remission of sins; and by Him everyone that be- 


Mi Corey. 7. 2 Eph. v. 2. 8 Heb. x. 19-22 
* Heb. ix. 22-26. See also Eph. v. 25; Heb. iv. 14, vii. 26, x. 12-14, xili. 12; 
Rev. vii. 13, 14. 


5 Matt. xxvi. 28 


378 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


lieveth is justified from all things, from which ye could no_ be 
justified by the law of Moses.” ! : 

“Tf, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God 
through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, 
shall we be saved by His life; and not only so, but we also 
rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom 
we have received the reconciliation.” * 

«So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto 
all men to condemnation: even so through one act of right- 
eousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. 
For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were 
made sinners; even so through the obedience of the one shall 
the many be made righteous.” ® 

“In whom we have our redemption through His blood, the 
forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His 
grace, (5 | 

“‘ Now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made 
nigh in the blood of Christ.” ® 

«And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your 
mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the 
body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and with- 
out blemish and irreproachable before Him.” ® 

5. Christ is represented as being given or offered as a means 
of redemption. 

“Take heed unto yourself to feed the Church of God, which 
He purchased with His own blood.” ? 

“Ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price. 
... Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having be- 
come a curse for us; for it is written, cursed is every one that 
hangeth on a tree.’ 8 


—— 


1 Acts xiii. 38, 39. 8 Rom. v. 18, 19. 
2 Rom. v. 10, II. i) BEDE 7, 
5 Eph. ii. 13. 


6 Col. i. 21, 22. See also John iii. 14-18; Acts x. 43; 1 Thess. v. 9, 10. 
7 Acts xx. 28, © : Cor. vi. 19; Gal. iii. 13. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 379 


“Giving thanks unto the Father... who delivered us out 
of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom 
of the Son of His love; in whom we have our redemption, 
the forgiveness of our sins.”’! 

“ There is one God, one mediator also between God and 
men, Himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom 
for all.” ? 

‘Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory 
of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ ; who gave Him- 
self for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity.” 3 

«Christ having come a high priest of the good things to 
come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not 
made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet 
through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own 
blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having ob- 
tained eternal redemption.” + 

“Knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible 
things, with silver and gold, from your vain manner of life 
handed down from your fathers; but with precious blood, as of 
a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of 
Renviats’* 

«And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art thou to 
take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast 
slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every 
tribe, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our 
God a kingdom and priests.” © 

6. Christ is described as being, through His shed blood, a 
propitiation for sins. 

“ Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption 
that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitia- 
tion, through faith, by His blood, to shew His righteousness, 


ee 





1 Col. i. 13, 14. 8 Titus ii. 13, 14. 

21 Tim. ii. 5, 6. 4 Heb. ix. 11, 12, 

5: Pet. i. 18, 19. 

6 Rev. v.9, 10. See also Matt. xx. 28; Eph. i. 6, 7; Rom. iii. 23-24. 


380 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the 
forbearance of God; for the shewing, I say, of His righteous- 
ness at this present season: that He might Himself be just, 
and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.” ! 

“If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for 
our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole 
world.” ? 

7. Christ’s mediation is represented as necessary to sal- 
vation. 

‘Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. 
no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” ? 

‘In none other is there salvation ; for neither is there any 
other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein 
we must be saved.’ 4 

“ Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, 
which is Jesus Christ.” ® 

8. Christ’s mediation is represented as the procuring cause 
of all positive spiritual benefits, such as the gracious aid of the 
Holy Spirit, sonship toward God, and eternal life. 

“The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father 
will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring 
to your remembrance all that I have said unto you.” ® 

‘This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses. 
Being, therefore, by the right hand of God exalted, and having 
received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He 
hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.” 7 

«As many as received Him, to them gave He power to be- 
come the children of God, even to them that believe on His 
names? 

“ He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he 


1 Rom. iii. 24-26. 5 Cor. iii.11. See also 1 Tim:ii. 5. 
2 1 John ii. 1, 2. See also Heb, ii. 17. & John xiv. 26. 
3 John xiv. 6. 7 Acts ii. 32, 33. 


# Acts iv. 12. 8 John i. 12. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 381 


that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of 
God abideth on him.” ! 

«The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is 
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ? 

«The witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, 
and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the 
life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.’ 

“Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us 
wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and 
redemption.” 4 

«Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrec- 
tion of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ 
shall all be made alive.” ® 

“We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for 
good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in 
them.” & 

“ Having been made perfect, He became unto all them that 
obey Him the author of eternal salvation.” 7 

g. Christ’s mediatorial work is represented as strongly at- 
testing God’s love. 

“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but 
have eternal life.” 8 

“Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God 
hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we 
might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved 
God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the pro- 
pitiation for our sins,” % 


1 John iii. 36. * 1 Cor. i. 30. 
2 Rom. vi. 23. ¥it Gore xv. 21; 22; 
81 John v. II, 12. 6 Eph. ii, 10. 


7 Heb. v. 9. See also John vi. 40, 51, xvi. 7, xvii. 2; Rom, v. 20, 21, x. 43 
Eph. i. 3-5, v. 25-27. 

8 John iii, 16. 

¥ 1 John iv. 9, 10. See also Rom. vy. 6-8, viii. 32, 38, 39. 


382 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


A glance at the foregoing analysis will reveal that an essen- 
tial community of thought on the work of Christ is characteris- 
tic of the great majority of New Testament books. One aspect 
may be more prominent in the references of one writer than 
in those of another; but most points of view are illustrated 
in the different writings or groups of writings. 

A second thing which is made clearly manifest is, that there 
is no warrant for drawing a contrast between the Father and 
the Son, as though the one, rather than the other, stood on 
the side of grace. It is an unbiblical imagination which iden- 
tifies the Father with law and justice, and the Son with the 
pitying love which tones down the demands of law and justice. 
No such notion appears with the sacred writers. On the con- 
trary, it is their repeated representation that the whole redemp- 
tive mission of Christ was founded in and illustrative of the 
compassion and love of God. If it is said that the Son suffered 
and died for men, it is said also that the Father spared not 
His own Son, but gave Him up in behalf of men. Not to 
spare His Son was not to spare Himself. The bond of love 
between them makes real disjunction as respects self-sacrifice 
inconceivable. 

An inappropriate antithesis between the Father and the 
Son is sometimes introduced by an exaggerating interpretation 
of the anguished exclamation of Christ upon the cross, “ My 
God, why hast thou forsaken me!”’ A shadow of mystery, 
it must be conceded, hangs over these words. While they 
serve to heighten the aspect of tragedy, and in that sense were 
congruous with the scene of the crucifixion, they are not just 
the words that we should expect to hear from the lips of the 
innocent sufferer. But between two difficulties it behoves us 
to chose the lesser; and it certainly involves less difficulty 
to suppose that something of hyperbole was put into a brief 
exclamation of the dying Christ, than to suppose that the 
Father assumed an artificial attitude toward the Son of His 
love. If God darkened His face toward the Son upon the 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 383 


cross, He put on an appearance counter to the reality ; for, 
beyond all question, the Son was never more perfectly an ob- 
ject of His complacent love than at this climax of self-devote- 
ment. The Son on His part, if still in the actual exercise 
of His unique knowledge of the Father, must be supposed 
to have seen through any mere mask, or appearance, to the 
reality. Should it be said that His great agony clouded over 
for the moment His vision of the reality, it may be replied: 
Very true; but on this supposition the exclamation of the 
crucified one is sufficiently explained apart from any change 
of attitude, any retreat or appearance of indifference, on the 
side of the Father. This we believe to be by far the prefer- 
able interpretation, namely, that which refers the temporary 
shadow, not to the Father’s choice and action, but rather to 
the anguished soul and deeply wounded sensibility of the Son. 
The alternative interpretation goes quite too far in represent- 
ing the Father as acting a theatrical part. AQ little before He 
had sent an angel to strengthen the Son, and was known to 
be ready to send legions of angels if they should be called for. 
Just afterwards, in the conception of the Son Himself, He 
stood ready to receive His spirit with fatherly tenderness. Is 
it to be imagined that He shifted His attitude back and forth 
thus suddenly? Far better to suppose that the words of the 
ancient psalm (xxii. 1) came spontaneously into the mind of 
Christ as the maximum expression of anguish afforded by 
human speech, and were thus appropriated to sigh forth His 
own deep distress —a distress which at its acme quenched 
the comforting sense of the Father’s presence rather than in 
strictness the conviction of His continued favor. The bor- 
rowed exclamation may be construed as meaning, O my God, 
behold how this flood of darkness and distress submerges my 
soul, even to the quenching of the cheering sense of thy 
presence ! 

Another thing which is apparent from a glance at the scrip- 
tural passages is, that the sacred writers were much more con- 


384 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


cerned to emphasize the truth that Christ has been constituted 
the medium or channel of saving benefits, than to set forth 
the precise way in which those benefits were conditioned upon 
His work, or the necessary connection between the two. The 
former can be read by one who runs. It shines with noon-day 
brightness from the pages of the Gospels and Epistles. A 
well-grounded confidence respecting the latter needs to be pre- 
ceded by a very careful examination and induction. Indeed, 
scholars of no mean insight have concluded that the funda- 
mental grounds and relations of Christ’s work are best left in 
the field of acknowledged mysteries. But, while we confess 
that there is danger of presumption, we are not convinced that 
the intimations of Scripture are too scanty to justify an at- 
tempt to frame a theory of atonement. 

On one important point only a moderate amount of scrip- 
tural testimony can be regarded as demanded. It is so much 
the dictate of reason that suffering by itself cannot be an end 
with God or have any worth in His sight, that we do not need 
the warrant of repeated declarations to justify the conclusion 
that the value of Christ’s sufferings lay rather in the ethical 
will which they manifested than in the quantum of pain which 
they comprised. Accordingly, in the absence of anything of 
a contrary tenor, we may take in their full breadth Paul’s 
representations that the death upon the cross was the culmi- 
nation of Christ’s holy obedience, and that this costly obedi- 
ence is to be viewed as the chief element in atoning virtue.! 
This point of view gives an ethical worth to suffering, as test- 
ing and manifesting a sacred devotion to righteousness, and 
apprises us that the peculiar stress upon the death of Christ 
does not isolate its meaning from that of His life. We are at 
liberty to regard the holy, obedient will of Christ, whether 
viewed as paying tribute to righteousness or working out the 
dictates of love, as the central factor in the worth of His 


1 Phil. ii. 8; Rom. v. 18, 19. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 385 


earthly ministry, and as running through the whole of that 
ministry, though in brief rhetorical references, like those of 
the New Testament writers, it is natural to put the stress 
upon the culminating phase. 

In relation to a second important point it is proper to ask 
for a somewhat larger basis in revelation. We refer to the 
question, whether or not an objective bearing is to be attrib- 
uted to Christ’s work. Theories which suppose that the one 
demand which needed to be met by the work of Christ was 
that of an effective appeal to men, an appeal suited to move 
them to repentance, faith, and love, are called purely sub- 
jective theories, since a transformation of man’s inner atti- 
tude is the one end that claims consideration from their point 
nf view. On the other hand, in so far as the work of Christ 
js brought into relation to God, and is assumed to have met 
some great demand in His nature and government, to have 
been with Him a condition of a universal economy of grace 
and of its publication to the world, it is said to contain an 
objective phase or element. 

In our view the best discretion will admit a carefully 
guarded objective element. The full statement of the evi- 
dences for this conclusion will be given later. We notice 
here simply that it is not to be excluded by any such easy 
expedient as an appeal to the parable of the prodigal son. 
This parable proclaims, doubtless, in most unmistakable terms 
the fact that a seeking, welcoming love is characteristic of 
God. The certainty of this glorious fact, however, is far 
from implying that fitness of method is a matter of indif- 
ference in the bestowment of grace. In a wise and holy 
being love cannot be expected to deny either wisdom or 
holiness. These can properly be viewed, not, indeed, as 
limiting the measure of love, but as conditioning its method 


in the great task of recovering a fallen race. In the order of 
be ee ars Se er eS ER RD eM Ce MER FE ae aE PEPIN T Foo Er Na We Pay 
1 “The self-oblation which was consummated on the cross was begun at the incare 


nation.” (J. S. Lidgett, The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, p. 290.) 


386 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


passages referred to, Christ was picturing the ample measure 
of the Father’s love. That He had no intention of denying 
that this love is conditioned in its method, or operates within 
a prearranged economy of grace, is clearly enough intimated 
by the terms which He employed to describe His own sacri- 
ficial and redemptive vocation. But to suppose God’s love 
to be truly conditioned in its method of restoring sinners is 
just equivalent to providing a place for an objective phase 
in the work of atonement. 


IV.—THEORIES WuHicH Must BE PRONOUNCED INADE- 
QUATE IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURAL TEACHING. 


Some of the theories which fall under this description con- 
tain very significant points of view, and on this account room 
for a brief sketch may appropriately be awarded them, 
though they fail to measure up to the full import of the 
scriptural data. Here belong the Socinian theory, that of 
Schleiermacher, that of Horace Bushnell, and that of Al- 
brecht Ritschl. 

In the original Socinian scheme the whole work of Christ 
is summed up under two main points of view. On the one 
hand, He appears upon earth as the inspired teacher; on the 
other, He appears in heaven as the exalted king of men, and 
the dispenser, by divine appointment, of all spiritual blessings. 
His death is to be regarded as subordinate to one or the other 
of these points of view. It proclaimed His sincerity as a 
teacher, afforded a unique example of suffering patience, and 
was a necessary antecedent to His resurrection, whereby the 
truth of His divine mission was attested, and a most salutary 
hope of future blessedness was given to men. Viewed as an 
example of unswerving fidelity, Christ’s death inspires to for- 
titude; while taken as the necessary antecedent to the resur- 
rection and glorification, it was subservient to a display of 
God’s benevolent intent toward the race in spite of its ill 
desert. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 387 


As Schleiermacher made the distinctive feature in Christ’s 
person to be His perfect God-consciousness, so also he con- 
ceived that the same was at the foundation of the work of 
redemption and reconciliation. Drawn by the bond of His 
high-priestly sympathy, Christ shares the lot of men, and 
exposes Himself to the pains, inward and outward, which come 
from contact with human sin. The closeness of the relation 
. thus established with humanity becomes the means of an 
effective interchange. In proportion as the faith of men is 
elicited toward Him, they are drawn into the circle of His 
God-consciousness, are made to share in His sense of sonship. 
Imbued with this new and life-giving sense of sonship, and 
convinced that the Redeemer, with whom they feel that they 
are vitally connected, is an object of God’s perfect com- 
placency, they are able to apprehend that in and through Him 
they are reconciled to God, so that the sufferings to which 
they are still exposed are relieved of the aspect of wrath. 
Also God, on His part, sees those who are thus united to His 
Son, not as they would be by themselves, but as they are in 
virtue of this effective relation. They may still be imperfect 
in heart and life; but God views them as having, through 
their union with Christ, the pledge and potency of ultimate 
perfection, so that the good pleasure which He has in His 
Son reaches also to them.' 

According to Bushnell, the virtue of Christ’s work lay in 
its authentic manifestation of God, through the most effective 
means of manifestation, namely, vicarious sacrifice. Nothing 
else was required, since the barrier to reconciliation was wholly 
in man, and not at all in God. Love, which is the very prin- 
iple of vicarious sacrifice, sent the Son of God into the field 
of inevitable exposure and suffering. His ministry of self- 
denial, flowing thus out of the heart of God and revealing 
God’s heart to men, is intrinsically adapted to be the source 
of unequalled moral influence. It is this in all the fuller 


1 Christliche Glaube, 2? 100-104, 


388 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


measure because it not merely emphasizes the love of God, 
but gives an unique disclosure of all His moral perfections. 
While there was no need on God’s part that the law should 
be honored as a preliminary to man’s forgiveness, Christ’s 
sacrifice does, in fact, confer unmeasured honor upon the law. 
“‘I’verything that we see,’’ says Bushnell, “in the incarnate 
life and suffering death, is God magnifying the honor of His 
law by the stress of His own stupendous sacrifice.”"! Again 
he remarks, ‘It is obvious enough that, in such a way of 
obedience, Christ makes a contribution of honor to the law 
He obeys that will do more to enthrone it in our reverence 
than all the desecrations of sin have done to pluck it down— 
more than all conceivable punishments to make it felt and 
keep it in respect. The glory of His incarnate mission is 
precisely—and in this is the gain of it—that He unbosoms, 
in time, what love and obedience to law were hid in God’s 
unseen majesty, or but dimly and feebly shown before.’’? A 
full-orbed disclosure like this, Bushnell contends, is, above 
all things, adapted to rebuke and heal man’s sinful disposi- 
tion, and thus to accomplish all that is required for complete 
reconciliation. 

The moral influence theory, as set forth in his book on 
“The Vicarious Sacrifice,’ failed permanently to satisfy the 
mind of Bushnell. He came to the conclusion that it needed 
to be rounded out by a complementary truth. In a later 
treatise he assumed that the term ‘‘reconciliation”’ is not 
solely descriptive of what transpires in men, but has a certain 
application to the divine attitude toward men. As we, by 
making cost to ourselves for an enemy, overcome our inward 
reluctance to forgive, so God, by entering into sacrifice for 
sinners, becomes in His own feeling fully at peace with Him- 
self in extending grace to them.: 

Ritschl’s teaching is substantially at one with the first form 





1 The Vicarious Sacrifice, p. 302. 
‘Tbid, pp. 314, 319. 
* Forgiveness and Law. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 389 


of Bushnell’s theory in repudiating an objective bearing of 
Christ’s work. All judicial and governmental terms, he con- 
tends, misconstrue the relation of God to the redemptive 
process. They divert attention from the real trend of bib- 
lical teaching. The characteristic idea of God in the New 
Testament is that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and the relation in which He stands to Christ shapes the 
conception of His relation to men. It is in the character 
of father that He approaches them and forgives their sins. 
“The ground of justification or the forgiveness of sins is the 
benevolent, gracious, compassionate determination of the will 
of God to grant to sinners access to Himself.’”’ The whole 
design of Christ’s work upon earth was to reveal and give 
practical effect to the benevolent intent of God. No vicarious 
satisfaction was either required or offered. Christ did not 
and could not bear the penalty which properly attaches to 
sinners, since the essential characteristic of that penalty is 
the feeling of guilt and consequent separation from divine com- 
munion. The worth of His sufferings lay in their revealing 
the moral worth of His person, or the extent of His righteous 
obedience in the fulfillment of His calling. In the discharge 
of His calling He gave effect to God’s gracious purpose and 
brought salvation to men. That calling was the founding of 
a spiritual kingdom, a universal religious communion, in which 
a common sense of sonship and brotherhood serves as a bond 
of union. To be brought truly within the communion thus 
instituted is to be made a recipient of justification. The love 
of God toward the obedient head of the communion is fit- 
tingly extended to the members.' 

Among the theories under consideration the Socinian seems 
to run with shallowest current. All of its positive content 
is true enough, but the heart of the gospel truth does not 
appear to be reached. In setting forth Christ as the mere 
delegate of God it does not do justice to the intimacy of His 





Bah a he la ep ee EN gah Mam be coe. baleen oD ah 
1 Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Verséhnung. 


390 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


relation with the Father. In like manner it fails to do justice 
to the intimacy of His relation with men. He stands by them 
too exclusively in the character of the teacher. The New 
Testament conception of His saviourhood is not reproduced 
in its proper potency. 

The theories of Schleiermacher and Ritschl include points 
of such value that we shall be glad to emphasize them in the 
more constructive portion of our discussion. But in the 
teaching of both of these distinguished men it is not difficult 
to discern a source of acertain one-sidedness. The very pale 
character which Schleiermacher gave to the divine attributes, 
combined with his optimistic determinism, afforded a very 
poor basis for stressing the claims of divine righteousness. 
Equally those claims are disregarded by Ritschl’s assump- 
tion that the whole ethical nature of God is absorbed in His 
loving will. Neither the Bible nor a sound theism permit us 
to make so little account of the righteousness side of the 
divine nature. But if we amend the teaching of Schleier- 
macher and Ritschl on this point we naturally find occasion 
to correct their doctrine of atonement in the direction of 
recognizing the objective element which they ignored in the 
trend of their teaching.t To emphasize the demands of 
divine righteousness is to make credible the conclusion that 
the economy of grace was conditioned on the divine side. 

Bushnell gave worthy expression to a great truth in his 
exposition of the efficacy of divine self-sacrifice as a source 
of saving influence upon the minds and hearts of men. But 
still it was in obedience to the dictates of a just impression 
of a deficit that he was led to look for a complement to his 
primary theory. Unfortunately his choice of a complement 
was not made with the highest discretion. The objective 





1It may be noticed that both Schleiermacher and Ritschl, in granting that Christ’s 
standing has a certain efficacy as respects the relation of believers to God, might seem 
to affiliate with the idea of an objective value in His reconciling work. Judged by their 
tenor, however, the teachings of both theologians are quite distinctly in line with the 
purely subjective theories. 





THE WORK OF CHRIST, 391 


element which he introduced was conceived in a too anthro- 
pomorphic fashion. A better complement to his original 
subjective theory might have been found in a due weighing 
of the import of that unequalled display of the divine right- 
eousness which he himself associated with the life, suffering, 
and death of Christ. 


V.—THEORIES WHICH EXAGGERATE SOME PHASE OF 
CuRIsT’s WORK OF ATONEMENT. 


Along with theories whose fault is the neglect of important 
aspects rather than an overdrawing of those which are recog- 
nized as valid, we have others which are exposed to criticism 
as exaggerating some phase pertaining to the subject of atone- 
ment. Here belong the Swedenborgian theory, the so-called 
mystical, the judicial, and the strict governmental. The 
third may be described otherwise as the theory of penal 
satisfaction. 

In accordance with his conception that the peace and wel- 
fare of the universe depend upon the conservation of a proper 
balance between interacting components, Swedenborg con- 
ceived that a principal end of Christ’s coming was the repress- 
ing of infernal spirits, the confining of them to such limits 
as might be consistent with a right equilibrium between the 
heavens and the hells. The latter, he says, had grown up to 
such a height as to crowd upon the domain of the former. In 
order to fight against and repress the hells, the Lord was 
necessarily incarnated, for otherwise He would have lacked 
the means of an effective communication with them, just as 
one soul cannot communicate with another except through 
the medium of a body.1 

The strangeness of this theory codrdinates it with the most 
grotesque of the patristic representations respecting the rela- 


1True Christian Religion, n. 114-125. 


392 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


tion of the redemptive work to Satan.' It is justly subject to 
criticism as giving an exaggerated and fanciful interpretation 
of the agency of the Redeemer in destroying the works of the 
devil, as slighting the close connection which the New Testa- 
ment assumes between the work of Christ and the remission 
of sins, and as allowing the physical to encroach upon the 
domain of the ethical. No one whose religious thinking has 
not come to be dominated by the physical analogies which 
Swedenborg imported into the spiritual world will be inclined 
to picture, as the central fact of Christ’s mission, a conflict 
with infernal spirits through the medium of a corporeal in- 
vestment. 

The mystical theory, somewhat vague in itself, is the more 
difficult to define because it has not been held as an exclusive 
theory, and has been differently colored by the differing ad- 
juncts with which it has been associated. It may be said, 
however, that its emphatic point of view is the unity of the 
Son of God with the race, which unity was established, or 
at least brought to manifestation, through the incarnation. 
Human nature in Christ, it is conceived, is not an isolated 
private thing, but something central and fundamental to the 
organism of humanity, so intimately related to the general 
body of mankind that it is the medium of renewing life 
thereto, and the standing which it acquires in the way of 
obedience, suffering, and glorification accrues without any arbi- 
trary imputation to the benefit of the general body. The 
tenor of the theory is mirrored in the following extracts from 
Thomas Erskine: “Christ came into Adam’s place. This is 


1 The reference to the fathers here is not to be understood as giving any countenance 
to the gross and amazingly persistent slander, that for a thousand years the Church knew 
no other theory of the redemptive work than that which teaches the payment of a ransom 
to Satan. <A few of the Greek fathers did verbally assume the fact of such a payment. 
The principal Latin fathers, though allowing from the time of Augustine a right in Satan 
over fallen men, did not teach that a ransom was either stipulated for or paid to him. 
Jn both the Greek and the Latin Church the relation of the redemptive work to Satan 
was only one aspect among several which received emphasis. Many more sentences can 
be quoted which speak of Christ as making a sacrifice to God than can be adduced for 
the notion that He paid a price to Satan. (See History of Doctrine, I. 121-124, 251-257, 
362-367.) 





THE WORK OF CHRIST. 393 


the real substitution. . . . Weareseparated from each other 
by being individual persons. But Jesus had no human per- 
sonality. He had the human nature under the personality of 
the Son of God. And so His human nature was more open 
to the commonness of men; for the divine personality, while 
it separated Him from sinners in point of sin, united Him to 
them in love. And thus the sins of other men were to Jesus 
what the affections and lusts of his own particular flesh are to 
each individual believer. Every man was a part of Him, and 
He felt the sins of every man—just as the new nature in 
every believer feels the sins of the old nature—not in sympa- 
thy, but in sorrow and abhorrence. . . . Here is the simple 
connection between the atonement of Christ and the sanctifi- 
cation of His members. The atonement consisted in Christ’s 
accepting the punishment of sin as the head of the nature; 
and the sanctification of His members consists in their accept- 
ing it also in the power of His spirit dwelling in them. 

Christ’s sufferings made the atonement, because through them 
the life was let into the body; through them Christ became 
the head of life to the body, and it is only by that life in us 
that we can lovingly receive our punishment and put to our 
seal that God is righteous init. . . . God hasa personal tender 
affection for every man, so that He desires union and fellow- 
ship with every man. Now the Son declared this love of the 
Father by coming into the root of the nature, that part which 
Adam occupied, and thus coming into every man, and thus 
testifying to the Father’s loving desire of union with every 
man.””! 

Some of the sentences of F. D. Maurice are much in line 
with those just cited. He speaks of Christ as the root of the 
life in all men, and makes the intrinsic connection of men, as 
men, with Him to be such that His justification, or the sen- 
tence of approbation which was pronounced upon Him in His 
resurrection, was at the same time the justification of all men. 


1The Brazen Serpent, or Life coming through Death. 


394 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


It is to be objected to this theory, that, in assuming a kind 
of natural union of men, as such, with Christ, it exaggerates 
and misconstrues the scriptural teaching. It is indeed a New 
Testament truth that the Son of God, who took on Himself 
the nature of man, is essentially fitted to be the head of all 
men, and that in Him God’s gracious purpose goes out to all 
men. But it is also a New Testament truth that effective 
union with Christ is ethically mediated, or dependent upon 
faith, and thus by no means pertains to men as such. The 
total representation is not that men are necessarily in Christ, 
but that they may or may not be in Him, according to their 
response to the word of salvation. On rational grounds, too, 
the presumed natural union with Christ needs a better exposi- 
tion than has been given. Questions like the following remain 
to be answered: How did Christ come into the root of human- 
ity atlarge? What is the warrant for assuming that humanity 
was less concrete in Him than in any other? Supposing that 
humanity was not individualized in Him as in us, how could 
that fact in any wise provide for a community with Him which 
is not possible between men generally? That Christ by virtue 
of His humanity should come into sympathetic relation with 
men, and reveal such truths as are adapted greatly to broaden 
the avenues of approach to their hearts and consciences, and 
thereby mightily forward the work of spiritual renovation, is 
quite conceivable; but it is far from apparent that such a 
union with Christ as is more or less distinctly assumed in the 
mystical theory admits of rational construction. The theory 
seems to slide into an unethical point of view, and is too nearly 
akin to the scholastic aberration respecting the real existence 
of universals to be agreeable to a sound philosophy. 

In the judicial theory God is contemplated preéminently in 
the character of judge. Men appear before Him as guilty and 
condemned to punishment. He is under no obligation to ac- 
cept aught in place of their punishment. Still He is at liberty 
to remit the penalties which impend over them, provided ade- 





THE WORK OF CHRIST. 395 


quate satisfaction is rendered to His justice. In the volun- 
tary obedience and suffering of His Son such a satisfaction is 
rendered for a definite portion of mankind. This, if not in 
kind a full equivalent for the penalties due to the sins of all the 
elect, was in point of value a full equivalent. It was designed, 
moreover, specifically to offset those penalties and not merely 
to serve as a fitting antecedent to a general display of forgiv- 
ing mercy. Having once engaged to accept the satisfaction, 
God is obliged, in consistency and justice, to acquit those for 
whom it was made. His grace was abundantly illustrated in 
the original provision of the satisfaction; but to give effect 
thereto in the pardon of its proper beneficiaries is rather a 
matter of justice than of grace. 

The above terms sketch the judicial theory in its unqualified 
form, as it appears, for example, in the pages of Charles Hodge. 
He describes the satisfaction rendered by Christ as ‘‘ penal or 
forensic,” the ‘‘bearing the penalty of the law”’ in the stead 
of sinners, and represents its benefits as being secured by dis- 
tinct covenant between the persons of the Trinity. ‘“‘All the 
benefits,’ he says, ‘““which accrue to sinners in consequence 
of the satisfaction of Christ are to them pure gratuities; bless- 
ings to which in themselves they have no claim. They call 
for gratitude and exclude boasting. Nevertheless, it is a 
matter of justice that the blessings which Christ intended to 
secure for His people should be actually bestowed upon them. 
This follows, for two reasons: First, they were promised to 
Him as the reward of His obedience and sufferings. God 
covenanted with Christ that if He fulfilled the conditions im- 
posed, if He made satisfaction for the sins of His people, they 
should be saved. It follows, secondly, from the nature of satis- 
faction. If the claims of justice are satisfied they cannot be 
again enforced. This is the analogy between the work of 
Christ and the payment of a debt. The point of agreement 
between the two cases is not the nature of the satisfaction 
rendered, but one aspect of the effect produced. In both 


396 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


cases the persons for whom the satisfaction is made are cer- 
tainly freed. Their exemption or deliverance is in both cases, 
and equally in both, a matter of justice. This is what the 
Scriptures teach when they say that Christ gave Himself for a 
ransom. When aransom is paid and accepted, the deliverance 
of the captive is a matter of justice.’”! 

The certain deliverance of those for whom the ransom was 
paid, implies, of course, on any other supposition than the as- 
sured salvation of all, that Christ died for only a portion of 
mankind. And this Hodge is very free to affirm. He con- 
tends, indeed, that the meritorious work of Christ brings to 
men generally certain incidental benefits. But these are the 
merest crumbs compared with the eternal salvation which is 
purchased for the elect. God’s redeeming love is represented 
as fenced in to a part of the race. ‘It follows,’’ says Hodge, 
“from the nature of the covenant of redemption as presented 
in the Bible, that Christ did not die equally for all mankind, 
but that He gave Himself for His people and for their re- 
demption.’”? 

The judicial or penal-satisfaction theory, as thus outlined, 
has the advantage of apparent definiteness and intelligibility. 
Its advocates, it is true, need to justify the application of such 
terms as penal or punishment .to the sufferings of Christ. In 
strictness it is impossible to suppose that they had the char- 
acter denoted by those terms. As Ebrard well says: “If I 
bear the chastisement of another instead of him, the same 
suffering which for him would have had the moral quality of 
a punishment has not for me, who am innocent, the moral 
quality of a punishment. For the notion of punishment con- 
tains, besides the objective element of suffering inflicted by 
the judge, also the subjective element of the sense of guilt or 
of an evil conscience endured by the guilty, or the relation 
between the evil act committed and the consequent suffering 





1 Systematic Theology, Part III. Chap. VI. 2 3. 
*Jbed., Part III. Chap. viii. 2 2. 





THE WORK OF CHRIST. 397 


inflicted.”"" But granting that we have in the terms com- 
mented upon only a verbal infelicity—the idea being that 
Christ’s sufferings, though not punishment proper, so satisfied 
the claims of justice that they could be accepted by the Divine 
Judge in place of the punishment of the elect—very serious 
objections still bar out the judicial theory. 

In the first place, this theory assumes a substitution of a 
more exact and technical order than is necessarily elicited by 
a fair interpretation of the Scriptures. It will be remembered 
that in the discussion of canons of interpretation the conclu- 
sion was reached that, inasmuch as the Old Testament insti- 
tutions of sacrifice furnish a permanent lesson rather in their 
general character and trend than in the minutia of ritual pre- 
scription, so in the New Testament imagery based upon those 
institutions essential truth is to be sought more in the general 
trend of the whole group of representations than in individual 
items. However, there is scarcely any need of appealing to 
this canon in the present connection. It is perfectly safe 
to challenge advocates of the judicial theory to produce a 
single sentence from the New Testament which implies with 
any degree of distinctness that Christ’s sufferings offset the 
sins of any company of transgressors in so specific a sense that 
their pardon was made thereby a matter of justice. Take such 
emphatic expressions as are found in Heb. ix. 27, 28, 1 Pet. 
ii. 24, and Gal. iii. 13. A vicarious function is undoubtedly 
asserted in these passages. They testify that Christ bore un- 
deserved sufferings, and that these sufferings have in the divine 
administration some kind of virtue or instrumentality in the 
taking away of sins. But can anyone see that they necessarily 
imply anything more than that the sufferings of Christ afforded 
a general ground for a gracious economy, and in that sense 
contemplated all sins in need of pardon? Most certainly not. 
To read into these, or any similar sentences, the doctrine of 


1 Quoted by Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, p, 603. 


398 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


specific satisfaction for the sins of a particular portion of the 
race is, to say the least, perfectly gratuitous. 

In the second place, the judicial theory is exposed to all the 
serious objections, scriptural and rational, which hold against 
the doctrines of limited atonement and unconditional election. 
We couple these two doctrines together here, for in essence 
they belong together. Some theologians, it is true, speak of 
Christ as dying for all, and then save the doctrine of uncon- 
ditional election by saying that God had no design to apply 
the benefits of His death to all, or to make them equally at- 
tainable by all. But this gives a farcical aspect to divine pro- 
cedure. If there was no earnest purpose to make the benefits 
of Christ’s death truly accessible to all, then all substance is 
taken out of the purpose that Christ should die for all, and 
it becomes sadly akin to moonshine. 

It will be a part of our task in the next chapter to show 
how the doctrines of limited atonement and unconditional 
election eclipse the fairest testimonies in the Scriptures to 
God’s benevolent disposition, and assail the very foundations 
of a rational faith in His ethical nature. In this connection it 
suffices simply to mention that the immense objections which 
stand against these doctrines are properly regarded as shutting 
the judicial theory out of the pale of credibility. 

Once more, the judicial theory involves conclusions which 
are contrary to the natural implications of the scriptural teach- 
ing respecting pardon or justification. An unsophisticated 
reader of the New Testament must gain these impressions: 
(1) That justification is in its consummation, as well as in its 
primary basis, a matter of grace on God’s part. (2) That faith, 
vital enough to be a principle of self-surrender and obedience, 
is a fundamental condition of justification. (3) That all men to 
whom the message of the gospel comes are seriously solicited 
to exercise this faith, and are therefore genuinely in the posi- 
tion of candidates for justification, 1 Now, the judicial theory 


qe ereeceeer mor eemener rmmnennreree nen pitinsoetinninenge eta cane LE SN 


1See John iii. tA. rs 36, Visi" Acts xiii. 390; Rom. iii. 22- 26, 360, vi. 17, 1882 Com 
v. 14. 15; Gal. ii. 16; Phil. iii. 8, 9; 1 Tim. ii, 4-6; Heb. ii. 9, v.9; 1 Johni. 9, v. 11, 12. 








THE WORK OF CHRIST. 399 


is more or less discordant with every one of these impressions. 
As has already been indicated, it is discordant with the first; 
for, though it assumes that grace laid the primary foundation 
of justification, it makes its actual consummation a matter of 
justice, something legally binding in virtue of pains long since 
suffered by an accepted substitute. It is at variance with the 
second, for it makes faith not so much a real condition of a 
divine gift as a stage in a foreordained and inevitable process, 
through which that gift is appropriated; in other words, in- 
stead of allowing faith to be a condition it reduces the same 
to the plane of a mere instrument. It is flatly contradictory 
to the third impression, for it implies that God has no genuine 
wish or intention that any shall exercise justifying faith except 
a limited number of individuals supposed to have been specially 
contemplated in Christ’s satisfaction. 

In general, the aspect of crass legality which characterizes 
the judicial theory is a ground of objection. Doubtless in the 
language of religious feeling, which employs images rather as 
mediums of suggestion than of exact description, it answers 
very well to speak of Christ’s self-sacrifice as a means of 
ransom. But to represent in formal theological exposition a 
bargain between the persons of the Trinity, wherein one of 
them engages to the other to undergo a certain order of judi- 
cially inflicted pains, on condition that the suffering endured 
shall be put to the account of such and such men—this is too 
close an assimilation of the highest heaven to the counting- 
house and the lawyer’s office to be agreeable to healthy reli- 
gious sensibilities. 

The governmental theory has a great advantage over the 
judicial in that it maintains that the work of Christ, instead 
of satisfying distributive justice for any man or any number 
of men, established simply a suitable basis for a proffer of 
salvation to all men upon equal conditions. But it is quite 
possible to push the governmental analogy too far in expound- 
ing the subject of atonement. And this has been done more or 


400 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


less from the days of Grotius to the present. Thus a very 
earnest and conspicuous advocate of the governmental theory 
remarks: ‘‘God asa righteous ruler must inflict merited penalty 
upon sin, not, indeed, in the gratification of any mere personal 
resentment, nor in the satisfaction of an absolute retributive 
justice, but in the interest of moral government, or find some 
rectorally compensatory measure for the remission of penalty. 
. . . Real as is the divine displeasure against sin and against 
sinners, atonement is made, not in its personal satisfaction, 
but in the fulfillment of the rectoral office of justice.” Now, 
the distinction which is assumed here between the dictates of 
personal feeling and the requirements of official standing may 
doubtless apply to a limited being like man, whose motives are 
shaped by partial insight, and with whom complete self-con- 
sistency is rather a high ideal than a real achievement. But 
is it not a questionable anthropomorphism to carry over this 
distinction to God? Can it be supposed that He is conscious 
of one set of feelings or demands as Divine Person, and recog- 
nizes a different set as Divine Ruler? What is divine govern- 
ment but the dictate and outflow of His ethical nature, His 
dealing with moral beings in conformity with His fundamental 
personal relation to them? There is in truth no occasion for 
a disjunction between the personal and the governmental in 
Him. In His absolute self-consistency He stands in the same 
identical plane as Moral Ruler and as Divine Person. What 
is agreeable to His feeling in the one character is agreeable to 
His feeling in the other. If the ends of good government for- 
bid an unconditional display of indulgence, so in no less degree 
do God’s personal holiness and justice. If the ends of good 
government allow a high degree of clemency, provided its ex- 
ercise is so guarded as to secure the interests of righteousness, 
so in like manner do the personal holiness and justice of God. 
We are obliged to conclude then that the governmental theory 
ought to be modified in so far as it gives place to the anthro- 


‘Miley, Systematic Theology, II. 06, 186. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 401 


pomorphic conception that God is other in His governmental 
position than He is in His intrinsic nature, or that there is 
only a lax connection between the two. 


VI.—THE ELEMENTS OF THE THEORY WuicH Best AGREES 
WITH SCRIPTURAL AND RATIONAL DATA. 


These have already been suggested in considerable part. 
Occasion has been taken to pass judgment in favor of recog- 
nizing an objective element in the atonement, with the under- 
standing, however, that this must be safeguarded by care- 
fully expressed conditions. 

In the first place it is to be understood that a legitimate 
objective element does not presuppose any real antithesis 
between the Father and the Son as respects their relation to 
the sinful race. This conclusion has been enforced from the 
point of view of Scripture, and we only need to add here the 
rational consideration that the demand of divinity in the 
Father cannot be rated as essentially different from the de- 
mand of divinity in theSon. If tribute needed to be rendered 
to the element of justice in the Father, the like tribute needed 
to be rendered to the element of justice in the Son. Ac- 
cordingly there is no chance to set the one over against the 
other as holding a disparate or antithetic relation to the 
work of redemption. The Son indeed as incarnate had a 
special part to perform, but the Father was with Him in 
closest unity or identity of interest throughout its performance. 

In the second place, a true interpretation of the objective 
element does not presume upon the literal payment of a price 
or the literal suffering of a penalty on the part of Christ. 
Neither the commercial nor the judicial analogy can be 
applied in strictness to the subject of atonement. The latter 
is excluded on grounds expressed in the preceding section. 
The former is refuted by the consideration just adduced. 
Since the Father and the Son stand in essentially the same 


402 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


relation to the race and have like demands to be satisfied, 
there is no good occasion in any literal sense to pass over a 
price from the one to the other. If it be supposed with 
Anselm that the Son earns an infinite merit, and, not needing 
this for Himself, allows it to be placed to the credit of the 
guilty race or of an elect portion thereof, it must be contended 
that merit is inseparable from character and is no more of a 
transferable commodity than is character itself. One may 
doubtless work or suffer efficaciously for another; but the 
benefit imparted cannot be supposed to be in the form of a 
literal transfer of credit. 

Again, in a true interpretation and rating of the objective 
element no license is involved to make light account of the 
subjective element, or the salutary influence brought to bear 
upon men by the manifestation of God in Christ. The two 
elements belong together in Christian contemplation, and it 
is poor discretion to permit either to be sacrificed to the 
other. If God’s love was to be shown in ample measure it 
was indeed necessary that it should at the same time be shown 
asaholylove. But certainly it was necessary for the achieve- 
ment of salvation, that the love should be shown in ample 
measure, and thus be made to serve as an effective motive- 
power in the direction of repentance and faith. A revelation 
of divine nature and relationship intrinsically potent in its 
appeal was indispensable. The warmest hospitality, therefore, 
should be rendered to the positive side of the subjective 
theories. Take for instance Schleiermacher’s view that 
Christ in virtue of His perfect God-consciousness, or as we 
should prefer to say, in virtue of His perfect sense of sonship 
toward God the Father, was qualified to exercise upon men 
an extraordinary redemptive potency. What possible justi- 
fication can there be for leaving a view like this out of sight? 
Was not the manifestation of perfect sonship in Christ an 
event of momentous significance? Was it not an event to 
cast a new light on heaven and earth, to illuminate man’s 


THE WORK OF CHRIST, 403 


relation to God, to change the religious atmosphere of the 
world? Does not the perfectly filial Christ naturally work as 
an incomparable attractive force to draw men into a filial 
relation to God? Plainly it would be a gratuitous impoverish- 
ment in doctrinal theory to leave a factor like this unrecog- 
nized. No more could we justify a slighting estimate of 
Bushnell’s doctrine of vicarious sacrifice—the thought that 
in the incarnate life and suffering death of the Son of God 
the full treasure of the divine heart, both in respect of love 
and righteousness, was set before men, and brought to bear 
upon them to smite them through with a sense of their un- 
worthiness and to win them to responsive love. A more 
radiant truth than this has not lightened the eyes of men; 
moreover, it is a truth which stands in the front rank of 
scriptural emphasis. We may properly covet something 
else to go with it, but it can never with any propriety be 
relegated to a secondary rank. With Schleiermacher and 
Bushnell we may associate Ritschl as including also in his 
subjective theory truths which are not to be neglected in a 
rounded conception of the redemptive economy. To specify 
one of the most characteristic features in his teaching, who 
would care to rule out the thought that Christ, in founding 
@ spiritual kingdom, a universal religious communion, in 
which a common sense of sonship and brotherhood serves as 
a bond of union, set on foot an effective agency for lifting 
men up into a saving knowledge and appreciation of spiritual 
things? To make this an exclusive point of emphasis would 
tend to poverty in doctrine and life; but a sacrifice of a 
theological value results also from thrusting it aside. It 
serves, we contend, the interest of religious and theological 
wealth to take up with hearty appreciation all the great 
truths of the subjective theories. 

Once more, it is to be understood that the assumption of 
an objective element, or Godward bearing, in Christ’s work in 
nowise implies a change of attitude in time on the part of 


404 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


God toward the race. It is scripturally and philosophically 
inconceivable that God should be a subject for such a revo- 
lution. For His thought the Lamb was slain from the founda- 
tion of the world. From eternity He viewed the race in all 
its essential conditions. Never to His contemplation was it a 
Christless race. It would have been contrary to His wisdom 
and benevolence to have purposed the creation of such a 
race. As was affirmed in another connection, the redemptive 
provision, or some equivalent therefor, was a presupposition 
of the creative determination. Prior to the first chapter of 
human history God viewed the race as incorporating His 
well-beloved Son and with Him both a lofty tribute to right- 
eousness and a unique potentiality of righteousness. What- 
ever worth the work of Christ had for His mind at any point 
in history it had before the ages. In consideration of this 
basis of an improved contemplation of mankind, which was 
provided in Christ, God may be said in some sense to have 
reconciled Himself to the race from eternity. 

The foregoing considerations serve to explain and rein- 
force the definition of the objective element in the atoning 
or reconciling ministry of Christ. Plainly that element has 
reference simply and solely to the method of divine grace in 
the recovery of men. The work of Christ does not constrain 
God to be gracious. On the contrary, the bestowment of 
grace has its primary source in the love which is fundamental 
to His being. The demand is not to make Him gracious, but 
merely to provide the way for the exercise of grace in harmony 
with the high demands of His righteousness and _ holiness. 
Christ furnishes that way. As the obedient Son, obedient 
even unto the death of the cross, He presents in one un- 
divided view the fullness of divine love and the majestic 
claims of divine righteousness. He demonstrates in the 
supreme sense that the love which is outpoured so lavishly 
is still a holy. love. In this demonstration, viewed as meet- 
ing a demand of the divine nature and administration, 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 405 


consists the objective element in the atoning office of 
Christ. 

Why do we affirm an objective element, a Godward bearing 
of Christ’s work, in the sense defined? Because, in the first 
place, we prefer not to quarrel with the New Testament. That 
element is in the apostolic writings. It is clearly implied, not 
to say formally stated, in various individual texts. Paul, 
in Rom. iii. 24-26, expressly teaches that in basing justification 
on the redemptive work of Christ God declares His righteous- 
ness and shows Himself just as well as gracious. He could 
hardly have said in more unequivocal terms that divine grace 
is conditioned as to its method by the demands of righteous- 
ness or justice, and that the work of Christ meets the con- 
ditions. The like meaning cannot well be denied to the 
great Johannine sentence, “‘He is the propitiation for our 
sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole 
world.’”’! It crops out also in the declaration of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews that Christ fulfilled the office of a faithful high- 
priest “‘to make propitiation for the sins of the people.’”? 
Other texts bear in the same direction.? Furthermore, we 
have an extended line of representations which imply the 
objective element, inasmuch as they indicate that Christ in 
His atoning office was not merely one means, or the most 
efficacious means for influencing men, .but rather a funda- 
mental condition of the existence of the universal economy 
of grace. Such are the representations that no man cometh 
unto the Father but by Him, that in none other is there 
salvation, that other foundation can no man lay than that 
which is laid, which is Jesus Christ, that through Him we 
have peace with God and access into His grace, that the 
righteous obedience of Christ founds the possibility of justi- 
fication unto life.“ Supplementing this chain of highly sig- 


1x John ii. 2. 

2 Heb. ii. 17. 

a9 Cor. %. 305) epi, 

John xiv. 6; Acts iv. 12; 1 Cor. iii. 11; Rom. v. 1, 2, 18. 


406 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


nificant texts, we have statements which encourage a posi- 
tive repose upon Christ’s mediation that would appear out 
of place save as that mediation is rated as a supreme means 
of meeting a supreme exigency in the divine administration, 
a veritable condition on the divine side of introducing and 
publishing a world-embracing scheme for the recovery of 
sinful men. That it is not easy to evade the force of the 
scriptural testimony is evinced by the record of recent scholar- 
ship. Eminent critics in various schools, whether their own 
views are in line or not, confess that the New Testament 
writings, and especially the epistles of Paul, afford unmis- 
takable ground for predicating the Sleefen Ae element in 
Christ’s work of atonement.’ 

In the second place we make room for an objective element 
under the specified conditions because it seems to us agree- 
able to a rational estimate of the demands of God’s nature 
and government. No one, we presume, would reckon it a 
likely supposition that God went to work in a haphazard 
fashion, or without any definite plan, for the realization of 
His good pleasure to save men. But if we admit the fact of 
a comprehensive plan, the fact of a world-embracing economy, 
it becomes a matter of such transcendent moment that we 
cannot suppose God indifferent to its chief constituents, 
unless we are willing to turn Him into the pale image of a 
God, a being empty of all moral earnestness. He must wish 
the economy to express His total moral nature. He must 
wish its bearer and impersonation to reveal and to enforce 
the claims of His righteousness as well as to declare the full- 
ness of His love. So a rational point of view unites with the 
scriptural evidence to support faith in the veritable presence of 
an objective element of the type described. 

Once more, this faith gains matter for confirmation in the 
observable fact that universally the divine administration 


1 John vi. 27-29, xv. 1-8, xvi. 23, 24; Gal. ii. 16, iii. 24-29; Phil. iii. 8, 9. 
* Holtzmann, Pfleiderer, Cone, and Burton, among others, make no question but 
that the objective aspect claims recognition in the Pauline writings. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 407 


seems to be so shaped as to nurture reverence for righteous- 
ness in conjunction with the manifestation of love. Any 
act of discipline, for example, from the hand of God is at once 
a token of love and a testimony to the claims of divine right- 
eousness. Why, then, should not this double character be 
expected of the manifestation of God in Christ? Why should 
it not have been a matter of divine prevision and choice? 
Surely it cannot be supposed that God would neglect at the 
very centre of the scheme of moral and religious administra- 
tion a principle which He observes in the management of the 
lesser details of His kingdom. 

Possibly some one may think it worth while to challenge 
the propriety of setting forth as an objective element in the 
atonement that of which God Himself is the chief source. 
In answer to this objection it is to be contended that a God- 
ward bearing is not excluded from a specific transaction be- 
cause God Himself is preéminently its originator. No abso- 
lute gift can possibly be made to Him who is alone the absolute. 
All good action which contemplates Him as an object has also 
its primary source in Him. The very penitence which is 
offered before His tribunal by the convicted transgressor has 
its principal spring in His grace. God receives in this case 
because He has given. But this fact does not exclude the 
conclusion that penitence is welcome to God, a tribute to 
His ethical nature and government, a condition of the em- 
joyment of His favor. So, in general, the fact that a tran- 
saction rests upon divine initiative and agency does not ex- 
clude a Godward bearing. The human is needed in a his- 
toric movement as a bearer and instrument of manifesta- 
tion; but it can truly be said that the more of the divine there 
is in the initiation and progress of the movement, the greater 
is the tribute which it pays to the ethical nature and the gov- 
ernment of God. From this point of view an incomparably 
significant Godward bearing belongs to the work of Christ. 
We may think of it as having objective worth, not, indeed, as 


408 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


giving God an incentive to be gracious, but as providing a fit 
method for the dispensation of His grace in a world-embracing 
economy. 

Should it be asked, what does God want except the scheme 
practically efficient to win and to reform men? the answer 
readily follows: God wants and must have the scheme which 
corresponds to the total requirements of His ethical nature, 
and this must greatly excel all others in practical efficiency. 
Love and righteousness admit of no divorce in the practically 
efficient scheme. A manifestation of love which does not rest 
upon a background of holiness, or is not made to share the 
field with a majestic disclosure of the claims of righteousness, 
must be despoiled of no inconsiderable measure of subduing 
and regenerating power over men. 

Insistence upon this great truth of the need of a balanced 
manifestation of divine attributes in the world-embracing 
economy of redemptive grace does not imply our competency 
to specify just what, if anything, might have been spared 
from the actual contents of Christ’s ministry, without trench- 
ing upon the perfection of His saving office. Some things, 
doubtless, might, in consistency with the working out of 
God’s general purpose, have been otherwise than they were. 
But it is profitless to attempt to carry out this point of view. 
The truth to be noted is that words, deeds, and sufferings 
make a rounded whole which is marvellously adapted on the 
one hand to honor God through an authentic and symmetrical 
expression of His attributes, and on the other to serve as an 
effective antidote to the sinful disposition of men.! 

In an earlier paragraph a preference was expressed for the 
view that atoning virtue, though having its crowning realiza- 
tion in the death of Christ, is to be associated with His whole 

1 Doctrinal history records the fact that eminent representatives of the fathers, of 
the schoolmen, and of modern theology, while holding that the way of saving men ac- 
tually adopted was supremely fitting, have subscribed to the conclusion that it lay within 


the infinite resources of God to adopt some other way. See Sheldon, History*of Chris- 
tian Doctrine, I. 257, 258, 365, II. 139, 140. 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 409 


incarnate career. Historically considered this view claims at 
least tolerance, as being in no sense a novelty. It has had 
more or less currency in the Latin Church in spite of the 
opposing judgment of Anselm. In the main the Protes- 
tantism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in both 
its great branches, the Lutheran and the Reformed, gave it 
acceptance. Distinct creedal statement was awarded it in 
the Formula of Concord and the Helvetic Consensus Formula. 
Calvin pronounced in its favor in these unequivocal terms: 
“From the time of His assuming the character of a servant, 
Christ began to pay the price of our deliverance in order to 
redeem us.” Scripturally the same point of view is not 
without support. Undoubtedly the New Testament writings 
make a very close connection between the idea of atone- 
ment and the death of Christ. But this emphatic associa- 
tion need not be regarded as importing that the virtue of 
atonement in no wise entered into His life. All fervent 
impassioned discourse hastens forward to the climax of a 
process or career. We condense our appreciation of the 
patriotism of a fellow-citizen into the pregnant declaration, 
“He died for his country;’”’ without, however, designing in 
the least to ignore the patriotic devotion running through 
his life. So the sacred writers, in expressing their fervent 
sense of obligation to Christ, naturally concentrated their 
glance upon the tragedy of Calvary, and measured by that 
His self-sacrifice and the cost of human salvation. Nothing 
compels us to assume that in picturing the climax they 
meant to separate it from the antecedent record. Indeed, 
we have hints that the death of Christ was associated with 
the life as but manifesting in the maximum degree the obedi- 
ence which characterized His entire career. Thus Paul, in 
the Epistle to the Philippians, says of the Son of God who 
renounced the divine form and appeared in the form of a 
servant, ‘being found in fashion as a man He humbled 
Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death 


410 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


of the cross.”” Here the implication is that the obedience 
ran through the whole state of humiliation and reached its 
climax in the death upon the cross. And since in another 
connection, namely in the fifth chapter of Romans, the apostle 
presents this obedience as the offset to man’s disobedience, 
the warrantable conclusion seems to be that atoning virtue 
belonged to the obedience in its entirety. We may claim, 
then, standing ground in Scripture for the contention that 
a chasm is not to be interposed between the life and the 
death of Christ in respect of atoning virtue. Full weight, 
therefore, may be accorded to the rational ground for the 
given contention. And this is far from being trivial. For, 
in an intelligible valuation of the death of Christ we seem 
to be led, above all, to that which is thoroughly character- 
istic of His life. No one certainly will hold that as a mere 
physical event the death had any transcendent worth. No 
one will care to construe it as a piece of strange magic. But 
if this is not to be done, then its worth, it would seem, must 
be sought in its ethical quality. In other words, the peculiar 
worth of Christ’s death is to be located in the loving self- 
sacrifice, the holy obedience, and the deep hostility to sin 
to which it gave signal manifestation. But what part of 
His life was not filled to the brim with these high values? 
His wearing of the servant form was itself a continuous 
sacrifice. His submission to have His hands and His feet 
nailed to the cross, and to endure the resulting agony to the 
last expiring breath, was only a more striking manifestation 
of the way in which He sealed up His power against any 
selfish use throughout His career. In its entirety that career 
was an incomparable revelation of loving self-sacrifice, holy 
obedience, and deep hostility to sin. With excellent reason, 
therefore, we may conclude that the atoning value realized 
by Christ had its starting-point at the incarnation. 

The principal points in the discussion may be summarized 
as follows: (1) There is an objective element in the atone- 


THE WORK OF CHRIST. 411 


ment, namely, that feature of Christ’s work which meets 
the demand that the claims of divine holiness or righteousness 
should be signally expressed along with the supreme mani- 
festation of God’s love. (2) For the divine mind this demand 
was essentially met in the original planning of the economy 
of grace, so that one self-consistent disposition in God is to 
be regarded as back of His entire dealing with the race. (3) 
Along with the objective requirement there was a subjective 
one, which needed to be equally respected, that is, the require- 
ment that men should be approached in a mode intrinsically 
suited to influence them effectually in the direction of faith 
and love. (4) The objective and subjective requirements con- 
nected with the redemptive process are to be viewed as per- 
fectly harmonious, since love is most potent in its appeals when 
joined with a manifest stress upon the claims of righteous- 
ness. (5) The work of Christ met both demands in full 
measure. It therefore met all the demands of the case. The 
notion of a real transfer of merits out of an excess supposed 
to have been gained by the Redeemer can be left out of the 
account. (6) It was the ethical element in Christ’s work, 
the factor of holy obedience and loving self-sacrifice running 
through His doing and suffering, that was efficacious to meet 
both the subjective and the objective demand. (7) The 
economy of grace, as brought to manifestation in Christ, pro- 
vides a basis for the salvation of all men on equal conditions, 
rather than strictly purchases or absolutely guarantees the 
salvation of any. 

If one desires a briefer summary let him say: (1) The sal- 
vation provided in Christ for the race is the free gift of the 
love of God. (2) This love, the inseparable companion of 
righteousness, effectuates its end by a method or economy 
which pays exalted tribute to divine righteousness. (3) To the 
mind of God this tribute was present from eternity; before 
the ages he viewed the race as transcendently enriched in 
ethical value by its incorporation of His well-beloved Son; 


4Al2 REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION. 


no change of attitude on God’s part toward the race is to be 
imagined to have been induced or wrought out in the course 
of history. This form of statement has the advantage that it 
puts to the front the point which merits ever the first notice 
and the deepest stress. A true contemplation can never 
make the love of God secondary. 


VII.—ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS TO THE IDEA oF ATONE- 
MENT. 


Very little space needs to be given to objections to the idea 
of atonement, since most of those which have been urged con- 
template some phase of teaching not contained in the above 
exposition. Had we made a broad antithesis between the re- 
lation of the Father and that of the Son to the redemptive 
process, or spoken of penal satisfaction, or assumed a literal 
transfer of merit, there might be occasion for an extended 
apology. But, as it is, we cannot imagine more than one or 
two objections. ) 

Possibly some one may be inclined to question whether the 
work of Christ was in fact a great tribute to divine righteous- 
ness. In response we may repeat the rational consideration 
that a high stage of history, a movement specially initiated 
and controlled by the divine, naturally renders special tribute 
to the ethical nature and government of God. We may also 
appeal to the facts of Christian consciousness. Men who have 
come to a heart knowledge of Christianity will unite in declar- 
ing that the obedient and suffering Son of God is the mightiest 
protest against sin, the most emphatic sanction to the value of 
God’s moral order, that ever crossed the field of human vision.! 








1 The academic objection which has sometimes been urged, that Christ’s obedience 
and suffering, as pertaining to His finite human nature, were of only limited worth, need 
not detain us. It is based upon an artificial cleavage between the cardinal factors in the 
person of Christ. In His self-consciousness, as is abundantly attested, the human and 
the transcendent were combined. He knew Himself as the Son of God, alone having 
adequate knowledge of the Father and qualified truly to reveal Him, able to forgive sins, 
authorized to treat relationship to Himself and relationship to the kingdom of God as 
of identical import, and holding in His hand the awards of eternity. Now, it is in view 


THE WORK OF CHRIST, 413 


Again, it is possible that one may wish to contend for the 
efficacy of simple repentance to make amends for sin. But, 
aside from the fact that repentance never makes good a bad 
record, the question is not about the possibility of the uncon- 
ditional acceptance of the repentance of an individual, but 
about a self-consistent procedure for at once producing repent- 
ance and administering grace in a scheme of world-wide ad- 
ministration. In considering the essentials of such a scheme 
we come by a very direct path to all that has been contended 
for as constituting the objective element in the atonement. 

As regards practical bearings, it is legitimate to observe that 
warmth of religious sentiment is best secured, not by attempts ° 
to persuade ourselves of our own competency to reconcile our- 
selves to God, but by going out of ourselves to contemplate 
what God has done for us in Christ. This is emphatically 
acknowledged by Bushnell. At the conclusion of his conten- 
tion for his essentially subjective theory, he confesses that 
Christian piety needs to express itself in terms that are natu- 
rally significant of an objective element in atonement. ‘“‘Any 
strictly subjective style of religion,’’ he says, ‘“‘is vicious. 
It is moral self-culture, in fact, and not religion. We think of 
ourselves abundantly in the selfishness of our sins. What we 
need, above all, is to be taken off the self-centre and centred 
in God. Ceasing to go by contrivance, we must learn to go 
by inspiration; that is, by the free impulse of God in our 
faith. Hence the profound importance of the altar symbols, 
divinely prepared and fashioned to be the form of the Christian 
grace.””! 





of this order of self-consciousness that His obedience and suffering need to be estimated. 
His self-devotement must be measured by reference to the height from which He humbled 
Himself as weil as in view of the depth to which He descended. Applying this scale we 
can reach but one result. Since Christ’s humiliation and suffering, accepted for the 
holiest and most benevolent of purposes, were in amazing contrast with His conscious- 
ness of rightful position and intrinsic relationships, the Christian believer cannot forbear 
to associate extraordinary ethical worth with His sacrificial life and death. 


1 Vicarious Sacrifice, p. 542 






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THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION, OR THE 
PRACTICAL REALIZATION OF THE 
REDEMPTIVE PURPOSE. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION BY THE INDI- 
VIDUAL. 


].— UNIVERSALITY OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO APPROPRIATE 
THE SALVATION PROVIDED IN CHRIST. 


Amonc the grounds for rejecting the judicial theory of the 
atonement, mention was made of the fact that it rests on the 
assumption of a limited scope in the purpose of grace and 
an unconditional predestination of a portion of mankind to 
eternal life. This assumption — which necessitates the con- 
clusion that the non-elect never come within the possibility of 
salvation — was described as thoroughly objectionable. What 
we have to do in the present connection is to justify that 
description. Our contention is for the universality of the 
opportunity of salvation, as against an exclusive and uncon- 
ditional choice of individuals to eternal life. The argument 
will involve a reference to scriptural, historical, and rational 
considerations. 

It is not to be denied that the idea of election or predesti- 


417 


418 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


nation is awarded considerable prominence in the Scriptures. 
It could not have been otherwise, if their pages were to reflect 
the vast sweep of the divine agency necessarily operative in 
founding and consummating the kingdom of righteousness. 
As the working out of this supreme enterprise is immeasur- 
ably above creaturely abilities, it would be a glaring incon- 
gruity not to represent the far-reaching foresight and powerful 
direction of God as fundamental to it all. In any reasonable 
view His sovereignty, considered not indeed as arbitrariness, 
but as wise authority, must be regarded as determining very 
much according to its own behests. The existence of the 
economy of grace is altogether by the choice of God, not of 
men. The stages of that economy, from the first overtures 
to sinners to their investment with the glory of a supernatural 
destiny, are properly characterized as His choice. In the 
adjustment of nations and individuals to the economy, His 
agency is of vast consequence. Free will in man does not 
annul the necessity of providential ordering in this matter. 
To get His gracious purpose effectively before the contem- 
plation of men, God must have bearers and interpreters of the 
same. The fittest interpreters for a given time and place 
need to be selected, and fitness for this vocation is not in- 
dependent of foregoing discipline. Israel could never have 
fulfilled its mission in bringing the divine testimony to the 
nations without special training. Apart from the light shed 
by suitable antecedents, the world would not have known 
what to make of the gospel message as it fell from the lips of 
Christ and the apostles. The likelihood of a right response 
to that message on the part of a given individual is vastly 
greater under one set of conditions than under another, since 
different conditions afford very different degrees of motive 
power, and motives must be admitted to be influential even if 
it be denied that they are absolutely determining. The same 
truth which finds one man receptive encounters a deaf ear in 
another. The one believes readily ; the other cannot believe 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 419 


at once, in the sense that he cannot instantly transport him- 
self into the atmosphere of loving trust, his free will per- 
chance only availing to take some initial step in the direction 
of such trust, and needing special aids of divine grace and 
providential ordering to lead it forward to the proper goal. 
Thus the divine procedure has of necessity the appearance of 
selection or predestination, and is such very largely in fact. 
The conjunction of the prepared subject with the message of 
grace, whatever else may contribute thereto, falls preéminently 
under the category of divine ordering. But how is the divine 
superintendence managed? Is it so managed as to secure 
the fittest instruments for the greatest advance of the king- 
dom of grace and salvation that is practicable in a world of 
free agents? or is the sole care to bring into the divine house- 
hold a certain number, unconditionally chosen, to the ever- 
lasting neglect or exclusion of all others? The fault of the 
Augustinian or Calvinistic predestinarian is, that he fastens 
upon this ultra sense of predestination, and reads it into the 
Scriptures. Not content with the majestic office which is 
open to divine sovereignty in ordering the progress of the 
dispensation toward the grandest attainable result, he will 
have it that the absolute choice of God fixes the eternal des- 
tiny of all souls. 

If predestination in this sense is a scriptural idea we should 
expect to find it first of all in Paul’s Epistles, the writings of 
the New Testament which lay the maximum stress upon the 
doctrine that salvation is God’s gift rather than man’s acquisi- 
tion. Among Pauline sentences none exalt the sovereignty of 
God in matters of grace more than those in the passage which 
begins in the ninth and runs into the eleventh chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans. A divine choice is there portrayed 
which is based upon no consideration of foregoing works ; a 
sovereignty which makes of one, like the hardened Pharaoh, 
a vessel of wrath, and of another a vessel of mercy ; a preroga- 
tive in dealing with men which is even likened to that of the 


420 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


potter over the clay. But it is to be noticed in the first place 
that the apostle’s discourse was sharpened and intensified by 
the character of the opponent whom he had in mind. He was 
arguing against a party whose proud claim to exclusive privi- 
lege needed to be beaten down into the dust. Hence, in his 
vehement strain, he leaves aside for the moment all qualifying 
considerations, and marshals into line the most striking in- 
stances that he can select of an apparently unconditional choice 
on the part of God. As is remarked by Bruce: ‘“ Had St. 
Paul been in the mood to pursue an apologetic line of thought, 
with a view to reconciling divine sovereignty with divine love 
on the one hand, and with human responsibility on the other, 
he could easily have found materials for the purpose even in 
the history of God’s dealing with the king of Egypt. For 
what was the natural tendency of the signs and wonders 
wrought in the land of Ham? Surely to soften Pharaoh’s 
heart, to the effect of letting Israel go. God hardened 
Pharaoh’s heart by means fitted and intended to have the op- 
posite effect. And the fact is so in all cases. The means of 
hardening are ever means naturally fitted to soften and win. 
The apostle knew this as well as we, but he was not in the 
mood to indulge in such a strain of explanatory, conciliatory 
remark. He was dealing with proud men who thought the 
election of their fathers gave them a prescriptive right to divine 
favor. Therefore, instead of softening down hard statements, 
he goes on to make harder statements still ; representing God 
as a potter and men as clay, out of which God can make such 
vessels as He pleases, one to be a vessel of mercy, another to 
be a vessel of destruction, to be dashed to pieces at the maker’s 
will. As against human arrogance it is a legitimate represen- 
tation, but as an exact complete statement of the relation be- 
tween God and man it cannot of course be regarded. So 
viewed, it would be simple fatalism.”’ } 





1 St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, pp. 313-315. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 421 


In the second place, it is to be noticed that the divine choice 
which Paul was portraying was not conceived as a choice of 
individuals to eternal destinies, but rather as a choice of nations 
and individuals to ministries and blessings, more or less honor- 
able and extensive, in connection with the advancing kingdom 
of truth and salvation. His discourse had no direct bearing 
upon the technical traditional theory of election and reproba- 
tion. The historical position of Israel as the chosen people 
supplied him with his dominant point of view, and he wished 
to show that the same God who had graciously called Israel 
ought to be regarded as perfectly free to call the Gentiles also. 
The divine prerogative for which he contended was far from 
being that of selecting men unconditionally for the endless 
pains of hell or the endless joys of heaven ; it was simply that 
of adjusting diversely their relation to His unfolding dispensa- 
tion upon earth. 

In the third place it is to be noticed that, notwithstanding 
the unqualified stress which the apostle placed upon God’s sov- 
ereignty in the heat of his discourse, he nevertheless gave a 
clear hint that a qualification must be supposed. Of that very 
portion of Israel which he represents as hardened, cast off, 
sundered from the source of spiritual blessing as a branch is 
broken off from the parent stock —of this outcast and repro- 
bate portion of Israel he says: “They also, if they continue 
not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to 
graft them in again.’’! What is this but a clear intimation 
that the apostle after all acknowledged that man’s free agency 
counts for something in shaping the outcome? 

Finally, it is to be noticed that the apostle, so far from 
representing that God has an exclusive interest in the salva- 
tion of certain selected individuals, gives place to the optimistic 
expectation that even the rejection of unbelieving Israel will 
be overruled for the widest possible extension of salvation 





1 Rom. xi. 23. 
28 


422 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


both among Gentiles and Jews. “If the casting away of them 
is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of 
them be but life from the dead?...I would not, brethren, 
have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own 
conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until 
the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall 
be saved.” ! Thus the picture of divine election with which 
the apostle closes his most stalwart passage on divine sov- 
ereignty is not that of a fast, hard, and perpetual division of men 
into two classes, but rather of an election that is subordinated 
to the greatest ultimate extension of the kingdom of grace that 
is possible. To discard this picture, and to place the whole 
stress upon an impassioned and rhetorical outburst, in which 
Paul seeks to rebuke the inflated claim of those who thought 
they had a special lien on God's favor because of ancestral con- 
nections, is to do manifest injustice to the apostle’s thought ; 
and this injustice is aggravated when his hard sayings are taken 
out of their connection and made to refer to the eternal des- 
tinies of men. 

Two other passages of Paul are favorites with Calvinistic 
predestinarians, namely, Romans viii. 28-30, and Eph. 1. 4-7. 
Neither of these, however, is necessarily interpreted in the 
interest of their special tenet. The former, designed to con- 
sole and inspire suffering saints, is an elevated description of 
how the purpose, grace, and might of God are engaged to 
bear on the recipient of the divine calling from one stage to 
another, until at length the state of glorification and perfect 
conformity to the image of His Son has been reached. It 
emphasizes the greatness and perfection of God’s agency in 
the process of salvation, and apprises us that the heavenly 
height is attainable, not because men have the ability to scale 
that height, but because God has a complete scheme of gra- 
cious workings for bringing them thereto. The aim of the 


1 Rom. xi. 15, 25. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 423 


apostle is to beget a comforting reliance upon the perfection 
of that scheme. It is as if he had said: As surely as one 
standing upon the earth is certain to be borne by its revolu- 
tion from sunset to sunrise, so surely will one who stands 
within the scheme of God’s gracious workings be borne 
through the whole scale of spiritual progress from calling 
to glorification. Here lies the whole stress of the represen- 
tation. Paul does not say that any one is thrust into this 
divine scheme, and kept there by an irresistible decree. Quite 
as little does he say that any one is kept out by such a 
decree. In other connections, as will be shown later, he 
indicates that it is the unfeigned will of God that every one 
should so respond to the gospel message as to gain a footing 
within the scheme of salvation. His statement that those are 
predestinated who are foreknown leaves room for the suppo- 
sition that man’s agency, though utterly incompetent by itself 
to reach the lofty result in prospect, is nevertheless a condi- 
tioning factor in the attainment of the result. The placing 
of foreknowledge before predestination is an Arminian collo- 
cation of words; and there is no reason why an Arminian 
should not view this passage with entire complacency. Even 
if it be concluded that to “foreknow”’ means here to foreknow 
in the favoring sense, nothing compels to the conclusion that 
the favor must be regarded as arbitrarily fastening upon se- 
lected individuals. A similar line of remark applies to Eph. 
i. 4-7. If we emphasize at its worth the fact that the scheme 
of man’s recovery in all its stages is the sovereign device of 
God, that the grace contained therein is His free gift, and 
that the preparation of individuals for a suitable response at a 
given time to the gospel message is very largely the product 
of providential ordering rather than of personal choice, we 
give an adequate range to the foreordination which is men- 
tioned in this passage. Nothing in the language employed 
requires us to suppose that the apostle was thinking of an 
absolutely unconditional foreordination to an eternal destiny. 


424 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


The next group of passages which naturally comes under 
review in connection with this theme is that contained in the 
writings of John. In the sixth chapter of his Gospel the 
statement is made several times that coming unto the Son is 
by the gift and drawing of the Father. Doubtless a theolog- 
ical imagination of a special type can discover in this repre- 
sentation a token of unconditional election and _ irresistible 
grace. But a sufficient meaning can be found short of such 
an interpretation. As has been stated, free will, though a 
real factor in determining the final result, is not to be regarded 
as independent of a demand for a process ; and accordingly a 
large scope can be given to a providential ordering and disci- 
pline in preparing its subject for the right response to divine 
overtures. Unless one be drawn on by this antecedent prepa- 
ration, and be rendered plastic and receptive thereby, the 
word of grace, though uttered by one speaking as never man 
spoke, may have little chance of genuine acceptance. In this 
sense the drawing of the Father must precede the coming to 
the Son, and the coming to the Son is a token that the draw- 
ing of the Father has been fully consummated. That men are 
brought to final judgment without having been made the sub- 
jects of such a drawing as might avail, and in the divine pur- 
pose is meant to avail, for a saving union with the Son, is not 
intimated in the Johannine writings. On the contrary, as 
will be shown presently, these writings contain expressions 
which distinctly imply that God’s seeking love goes out after 
all men. 

Several Johannine sentences emphasize strongly the affec- 
tionate relation between Christ and his faithful followers ; but 
there is small occasion to read into them the technical doctrine 
of election. This applies to the parable of the good shepherd, 
wherein a striking picture is given of the fidelity with which 
Christ guards His own.! His declaration that His sheep shall 


1 John x, 27-29. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 425 


never be allowed to perish, if taken unqualifiedly, would indeed 
render support to the doctrine of perseverance. Whether 
this is the proper sense of the declaration, or not, need not be 
determined here. The pertinent question is whether men are 
brougat by an unconditional decree into the relation of true 
discipleship, or that spiritual rapport with Christ wherein they 
will obediently hear His voice. It is needless to say that the 
passage gives no hint of such a decree. No more does it 
hint that the safety of those outside the circle of believing 
disciples is of no real concern to Christ. The predestinarian 
who finds such a meaning here, or in the special prayer which 
Christ offered for His disciples on the eve of His betrayal,! 
must have forgotten the scene of His weeping over rebellious 
Jerusalem, as well as the import of many sayings which be- 
speak His world-embracing sympathy. It is in truth a shock- 
ing perversion to take the words of lavish affection which He 
spoke concerning His disciples as an index of an exclusive 
love for a selected portion of the race. The nature which had 
such a wealth of love as the words indicate could not be in- 
different toward winning any man to loving fellowship. The 
reason of the case corresponds with a record like that, fcr 
example, in the fifteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel. 

The few passages outside of the Pauline and the Johannine 
writings that can be quoted for the predestinarian dogma with 
any show of propriety” do not need for the most part to be 
considered in detail, since they add nothing to the passages 
already cited, and are explained on the same general principles. 
The purpose of the parabolic veiling of truth, as set forth par- 
ticularly in the strong language of Mark iv. 11, 12, need not 
be thought to mean, at the most, anything more than Paul 
saw in the temporary rejection of Israel. The words may be 
considered as expressing the immediate, not the ultimate, aim ; 


1 John xvii. 9. The same prayer, in xvii. 21, reaches out to the world. 
2 Matt. xiii, 13-15, xxii. 14, xxiv. 22, 24; Mark iv. 11,12; Luke vill. 10; Acts 
ail. 45; 1 Pets i. 1, 2. 


426 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


the present withholding being indeed in a sense retributive, 
but yet so far from involving a final sentence against the dull 
hearers that the disciples were doubtless being trained to bear 
to them a further message. A less strong significance may 
of course be attached to this item, if the report in Mat- 
thew (xiii. 12, 13) be taken as the standard, for in that, in 
place of a word expressive of purpose (iva), we have a phrase 
indicative of ground or occasion (da rotro érv). The verbal affilia- 
tion of Acts xiii. 48 with predestinarianism is very incomplete 
evidence for the technical Augustinian or Calvinistic tenet. 
The language indicates, very likely, that the writer conceived 
that the divine ordering was the preéminent factor in bring- 
ing about the faith and salvation of the Gentiles who, in that 
instance, believed. He was not ready to explain their salu- 
tary conduct on purely human grounds. But does that import 
that he did not make human self-determination any real factor 
in the case? The proof is wanting that he had an absolute 
decree in mind, or that he meant to say that those who did not 
then and there believe were forever excluded from salvation. 
It is simply incredible that he designed to affirm as much as 
that. <A failure of scantily instructed men to improve a first 
opportunity is no absolute proof that no opportunity will be 
improved. So perfectly obvious is this, that we seem to be 
required to take the words in question with a qualification. 
Perhaps we shall not err in supposing them to represent an 
inexact way of saying that a number showed by their faith 
that they were ordained unto eternal life. 

That the advocate of the traditional predestinarianism is 
guilty of an exegetical illusion may be argued from the fact 
that the writers to whom he appeals most are the very ones 
who declare most emphatically the universality of God’s gra- 
cious purpose. Paul certainly is very pronounced upon this 
point. In the fifth chapter of Romans he draws a compari- 
son between the harmful work of Adam and the salutary work 
of Christ. A leading aim of that comparison was evidently to 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 427 


glorify the work of the obedient Christ as a full offset to the 
disobedience of Adam. Indeed he asserts that the justifica- 
tion offered through the one was meant to be as universal as 
the condemnation occasioned by the other, if not in truth 
to overmatch it. The tone of the passage indicates that Paul 
would have considered it a slander against the largeness of 
God’s grace, if one had interrupted him with the suggestion 
that the area of possible salvation through Christ was fenced 
in and contracted, as compared with that of condemnation 
through Adam. Again he speaks of Christ as dying for all, 
and describes the gospel ministry as designed of God to 
reconcile the world unto Himself.! Finally, according to the 
record of the Pastoral Epistles, he makes these broad state- 
ments respecting the universality of the divine purpose and 
provision: ‘This is good and acceptable in the sight of God 
our Saviour; who willeth that all men should be saved and 
come to the knowledge of the truth, for, there is one God, 
one mediator also between God and men, Himself man, Christ 
Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.” “The grace of 
God hath appeared bringing salvation to all men.’ 

The language of John vies with that of Paul in proclaiming 
that the plan of salvation was a world-embracing scheme, de- 
signed to set an open door of opportunity before every man. 
No note of an absolute discrimination against a part of the race 
is heard in such sentences as these: ‘‘God so loved the world, 
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
on Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent 
not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the 
world should be saved through Him.” * “If any man sin, we 
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 
and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, 
but also for the whole world.’’®> “We have beheld and bear 





1 2 Cor. v. 15, 19. 8 Titus ii. 11. § ; John ii. 1, 2. 
2 Tim. ii. 4-6. # John iii. 16, 17. 


428 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour 
of the world.”! “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And 
he that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take of 
the water of life freely.” ? ) 

In the Epistle to the Hebrews Christ is represented ar 
“tasting death for every man”’ ;® and through the New Tes- 
tament there runs the general assumption that the gospel is to 
be preached to all, and that every man is under positive obli- 
gation believingly to accept for himself the. overtures of salva- 
tion contained therein. Predestinarians do not deny the fact 
that it is a part of the divine procedure to summon all men to 
the exercise of that faith with which is connected the promise 
of salvation. They are obliged, therefore, to admit that God 
authorizes a universal offer and imposes a universal obligation 
of acceptance, while yet He has made only a limited provision, 
and has no wish or intention that all men should avail them- 
selves of the gracious overtures. How do they explain and 
justify this incongruity ? They cannot explain it, except by a 
denial of their own premises. No human subtlety is adequate 
to justify a picture of God which represents Him as holding a 
universal offer in an outstretched hand, and keeping all the 
time in the hand behind His back a sentence of nullification 
against its universality. The self-contradiction in which 
Hodge becomes entangled may be taken as an index of the 
insuperable difficulty with which the predestinarian wrestles 
at this point. On the one hand he says: “This general call 
of the gospel is not inconsistent with the doctrine of predesti- 
nation. All the call contains is true. The plan of salvation 
is designed for all men. It is adapted to the condition of all. 
It makes abundant provision for the salvation of all. The 
promise of acceptance on the condition of faith is made to all. 
And the motives and reasons which should constrain obedience 
are brought to bear on every mind to which the call is sent.’’ 4 


1 1 John iv, 14. 2 Rev. xxii. 17. 3 Heb. ii. 
4 Systematic Theology, Pt. III. Chap. XIV. § 2. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 429 


But on the other hand, he teaches explicitly that Christ died 
for only a part of the race, that God designs to apply effectual 
grace to only an elect portion, that this effectual grace works 
regeneration in the mode of an omnipotent power, and that the 
common grace which is given to men generally is not sufficient 
to raise the spiritually dead, that is, to accomplish regenera- 
tion.! Now, from this line of representation, it follows inevi- 
tably that if all men are solicited to appropriate the benefits 
of Christ’s death some must be solicited to take what has no 
existence for them; and if all are exhorted to become truly 
the children of God through conversion and regeneration, then 
some must be urged to that for which there are no available 
resources in the universe. In the face of such implications, 
what truth or propriety is there in saying that the plan of sal- 
vation is adapted to the condition of all? It has neither adap- 
tation nor existence for a part of the race. If the positions 
which are defended by Hodge through elaborate chapters are 
true, the eternal plan of God as regards the non-elect is simply 
a plan of non-salvation, not to say of damnation. 

An artificial verbal advantage in scriptural interpretation 
may be secured by those predestinarians who say that Christ 
died for all, though God has no intention of applying the 
benefits of His death to others than the subjects of His un- 
conditional choice. But, as has been noticed already, such a 
representation is self-cancelling. A purpose that Christ should 
die for all, followed by such total indifference to some that 
they are consigned to eternal perdition, although they could 
be saved without any violence to their moral nature, as the 
advocates of the theory are compelled by their own premises 
to admit, is a palpable contradiction. A purpose that permits 
such an outcome cannot be considered expressive of a divine 
principle or disposition, and is utterly empty of reality. 


XV. § 3. 


430 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


that it lacks the sense of perspective. As the ultra sacerdo- 
tal theory discards the warp and woof of the Bible in favor of 
the most extreme meaning that can be put into a few rhetori- 
cal sentences, so the dogma of unconditional election rests upon 
an extreme interpretation of a few passages. The Bible asa 
whole most certainly contemplates men as candidates for a real 
history, and not simply as parts of a necessitated evolution. 

If we consider the circumstances under which predestin- 
arianism was born, we shall find considerable ground for a sus- 
picion of onesidedness. It was foreign to the thought of the 
first four centuries. Not a single Catholic writer of those 
centuries was its advocate. It arose out of controversial heat, 
and represented the reaction of an intense mind against an ex- 
aggerated theory of human ability. Augustine, who was the 
first to give it a place in patristic literature, did not hold it in 
the earlier part of his theological career, as he has himself con- 
fessed. He was led to its advocacy in the course of his impas- 
sioned struggle against Pelagianism. It represents the revolt 
of his mind from that superficial creed. It was the opposite 
swing of the pendulum. Some approaches to it may indeed 
have been made in the thinking of Augustine before the con- 
test with Pelagianism: but it was the pressure of that contest 
which urged him on to a distinct and uncompromising advo- 
cacy of it. 

A like ground of suspicion of onesidedness is afforded by 
the circumstances under which the predestinarian dogma 
gained a place in Protestant theology. The Reformers were 
confronted by a stupendous scheme of legality, an overgrown 
mechanism of ecclesiastical appliances, a complex system for 
measuring, weighing, and portioning out merits. The most 
ready expedient for sweeping aside all this trumpery, as it 
seemed to them, was to recur to the Augustinian principle ; 
that is, to disparage human merit, to rule it out of the cate- 
gory of possible attainment before the divine tribunal, and to 
rest all upon the sovereign determination of God. The bale- 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 431 


ful extreme against which they were contending drove them, 
in the first instance, to an extreme standpoint on the other 
side. At least, a review of the conditions favors the opinion 
that this may have been the case. And the after history 
is rather confirmatory than otherwise of this opinion. The 
Lutherans soon modified their original position. In the Re- 
formed Church, on account of the masterful influence of 
Calvin, rectification came more slowly. But at length a fruit- 
ful reaction was inaugurated by the Arminians in Holland, 
and each generation witnesses a relative loss of real faith in 
Calvinistic predestinarianism. Such is the tenor of the his- 
torical argument. It does not amount to proof; but it does 
give a measure of credibility to the conclusion that the tech- 
nical doctrine of predestination represents a one-sided develop- 
ment. 

Rational objections to this doctrine may be summed up in 
its contrariety to both the justice and the love of God. It is 
contrary to divine justice ; for, if men are born, as is assumed, 
with a bent to sin, if regenerating grace is necessary to over- 
come this evil bent, if this grace is denied to a certain portion 
of the race, and if Christ did not die to bring it or any other 
essential of eternal life to that portion, then to condemn them 
for lack of repentance, of faith, or of any other requisite of 
salvation, is an act that is wanting in all righteous consistency, 
an exercise of sheer despotism. That which, to the individual, 
is absolutely unavoidable cannot in justice be charged to his 
account. An inability which comes by birth is just the same 
to him as though it came by immediate creation, and can no 
more be made a ground of responsibility in the former case 
than in the latter. As well condemn Adam for the meanness 
of the clay out of which his body was fashioned as to condemn 
anyone for that which is purely a matter of inheritance from 
Adam.! Accordingly, when the predestinarian says that in 


i See the discussion of original sin, Part III. Chap. II. Sect. IX. 


A432 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


the sight of God Adam’s sin involved all men in condemnation, 
and that God was pleased to leave some in that condemnation, 
while He graciously delivered others, he simply enlarges the 
circuit through which the divine arbitrariness is supposed to 
run. He does not make the arbitrariness one whit less than 
it would appear in the declaration that God creates men with 
a moral deficit, and then condemns them to eternal punish- 
ment because of the deficit. 

The modified Calvinism, which assumes a xaturad ability in 
men, as distinguished from a mora/, to turn to holy choices, 
in other words, to regenerate themselves, cannot be regarded 
as satisfactorily evading the objection under consideration. 
Not to mention the very poor warrant for the idea of self- 
regeneration, and the suspicious character of an ability that is 
never once exercised, this type of predestinarianism rather 
secures the formal notion of justice in one particular, than 
renders to justice its whole due as a divine disposition. If it 
does not picture God as condemning men for the absolutely 
impossible, it does represent Him as arbitrarily discriminat- 
ing against some, in that He withholds from them influences 
which He knows would certainly be effective for their salva- 
tion, since He is able beyond all shadow of contingency to 
save those whom He elects. 

Nothing is more grievous in the predestinarian theory than 
the way in which it shadows the love of God. Between love 
as nature or disposition, and an arbitrary choice of its bene- 
ficiaries, there is an irreconcilable antithesis. To assign to 
love its direction by fiat is to displace the very notion of love, 
and to put caprice in its stead. Suppose a father standing 
upon the deck of a ship should see his children struggling in 
the sea, in imminent peril of drowning. In the worth or 
worthiness of the children there is no ground of discrimina- 
tion. The father has ample means to save all, for a plenty of 
life-preservers is immediately at hand. But instead of saving 
all he casts means of rescue to only two out of four, thus leav- 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 433 


ing half of his children to sink into the depths. Who would 
ascribe parental love to such a father? His unnatural con- 
duct denies the very conception, and leaves in view only mad 
caprice and appalling eccentricity. It is not the nature of a 
holy love to be subject to arbitrariness any more than it is 
the nature of sunlight to fill only selected portions of an open 
expanse. 

Predestinarians are wont to descant on the special love of 
God, as though a love which is entirely independent of the 
relative worthiness of its objects, and passes by some to fasten 
exclusively upon others, constitutes a pleasing mystery. How- 
ever, a love of this kind belongs to a pathological condition. 
It is quite possible to limited beings in whom feeling and 
reason are not necessarily in true coérdination. But to im- 
pute it to God, whose feeling never outruns His all-perfect 
intelligence, is without any rational warrant. The differing 
measures of His love must be supposed to correspond to the 
differing realities of its objects. He is not liable to untruth 
in His feeling any more than He is liable to error in His in- 
tellectual perceptions. 

It may be thought that the analogy of nature is rather in 
line than otherwise with the predestinarian hypothesis, since 
only a few out of many germs are favored with the proper con- 
ditions of growth and maturity. But beings who are said to 
have been created in the image of God, and who are capable 
of being exalted to the plane of true spiritual sonship, are not 
proper subjects for such an economy as belongs to the lower 
forms of life. An analogy far more binding upon our thought 
lies close at hand. As the earthly parent is not entitled to 
think lightly of the welfare of any of his children, so it may 
be concluded that He who is represented as the Father in 
heaven does not indifferently or arbitrarily leave a part of the 
race outside the possibility of salvation. 

We conclude then that the evidence is decidedly on the side 
of the universality of God’s gracious purpose, or that it belongs 


434 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


to His plan to grant to all men a real opportunity to appropri- 
ate the salvation provided in Christ. 


IJ. — THe HumMaAn ConpDITIONS OF APPROPRIATION. 


Among the conditions of the appropriation of salvation 
there can be no doubt that faith holds the primacy in the New 
Testament representation. It stands at the front in Paul's 
discourses, being powerfully commended as the source of eman- 
cipation from legal bondage, the means of vital connection with 
the Redeemer, the instrument for laying hold upon all the 
priceless gifts which God offers to men through His Son.} In 
the writings of John, if not commended at equal length, it is 
described in no less emphatic terms as a fundamental con- 
dition of salvation? It is assigned, implicitly or explicitly, the 
same fundamental position in numerous passages of other New 
Testament books. The teaching of the Old Testament on 
this subject lacks the definiteness and incisiveness of the New, 
but, nevertheless, does not fail to emphasize strongly the office 
of faith in relation to the attainment of divine blessings.* 

While the primacy is given to faith among the conditions of 
salvation, it is not to be overlooked that repentance receives 
not a little stress ;° and also that obedience is very closely 
associated with the appropriation of the benefits which are set 


ees 


1 Rom. i. 16, 17, iii. 21-31, iv., v. I, 2, ix. 30-32, x. 3-II, xi. 20, 23; Gal. ii. 16, 
20, iii., v. 4-6; 1 Cor. i. 21; Eph. ii. 8, iii. 12, 17; Phil. iii. 9. 

2 John i. 12, iii. 15, 18, 36, vi. 29, 47, vii. 39, xx. 29; 1 John iii. 23, v. 4, 5, 10. 

8 Matt. xviii. 3-6, xxi. 22, 32; Mark i. 15, x. 15, xi. 24; Luke viii. 11, 12; Acts 
xith. 39, XV.'9, vl, 315 Fleb, iv. 2,3, x30 xt,.6; 1. Pet./1.'5,'6. 

* Gen, xv..6;. Num. xx. 123) Dewt.'1.; 32-36% Ps... xiii.’ 5, ixxit.4;) 65 eee 
XXXVll. 3-7, xl. 4, lv. 22, Ixxviii. 22, Ixxxiv. 12; Prov. iii. 5, xvi. 3; Jer. xvii. 5-8; 
Isa. vil. 9, X. 20, xii. 2, XXxVi. 3, 4, Xxvili. 16, xxx. 15, 18, xl. 31, xliii. 10, xlv. 24, 
25, tla Fei, Ae Se 

§ Matt. iv. 17; Mark i. 15; Luke v. 32, av. 7, 10, 18-21, xviii. 13, 14, 17, xxiv. 
47; Acts ii. 38, iii. 19. Compare Ps. xxxiv. v8; Isa. lv. 7, lvii. 15. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 435 


before men in the gospel. Somewhat of the same association 
is given to confession ;* but there is little occasion to award 
it a distinct place, since it falls under repentance, when used 
to denote a heartfelt acknowledgement of sins before God, and 
under obedience, or the practical fulfillment of the gospel code, 
when used to signify an open and loyal declaration of faith in 
Christ and of adherence tc Him in the bonds of discipleship. 
As for the special injunction in the Epistle of James (v. 16), 
it implies that a mutual confession of faults among brethren 
may be helpful, as affording a ground of mutual sympathy and 
of earnest prayer in each other’s behalf. It points accordingly 
rather to a desirable means of joint edification and brotherly 
ministering than to a necessary condition of the individual’s 
acceptance before God. Still less is it needful to assign a dis- 
tinct place to hope,’ since hope is but an aspect of faith, the 
animated and trustful glance of the soul toward some promised 
good. In one sense love may be regarded as the maximum 
condition of salvation, since it names the highest obligation 
that is imposed upon the human spirit. But love is the 
highest good as well as the highest obligation, and so is in a 
large sense identical with salvation. All exercise of love in the 
form of complacency is pure blessedness. On account of this re- 
lation of love to the consummating stage of personal attainment 
and fruition, a motive is supplied, in enumerating the conditions 
of salvation, to place the maximum stress upon those activ- 
ities which prepare the ground for the upspringing of love. Still, 
it cannot be completely shut out from the character of a condi- 
tion, since every spiritual value grows by use, and one measure 
of love provides for a larger, evenas Christ declared, “Whosoever 
hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance.” # 


1 Matt. vii. 21-27, x. 38, 39, xvi. 24, 25, xxv. 14-46; Mark viii. 34, 35, x. 21; 
Luke ix. 23, 24, xiv. 27; John viii. 31, 32, 51, xiv. 23, 24, xv. 10; 1 John ii. 3-6; 
James i. 21, 27, ii. 14-26. 

21 Johni. 9; Matt. x. 32; Luke xii. 8; Rom. x. 9, 10; 1 John iv. 15. 

8 Rom. viii. 24. # Matt. xiii. 12. 


436 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


We emphasize then repentance and obedience as the second- 
ary conditions of salvation. That both are secondary to faith 
is sufficiently evident. Repentance, as including sorrow for 
the imperfection of past conduct and character and a purpose 
of amendment, presupposes and is grounded in faith. The 
feeling of sorrow over the soiled and imperfect implies the 
apprehension of a pure and obligatory ideal, and the purpose 
to turn from the former implies some measure of inward assent 
to the latter. But to speak of the apprehension of an obliga- 
tory ideal, joined with a measure of inward assent thereto, is to 
speak of faith. Thus it appears that faith is the more funda- 
mental, the logical antecedent of repentance. It is true that 
a different view might be suggested by this saying of Christ : 
« John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye be- 
lieved him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed 
him ; and ye, when ye saw it, did not even repent yourselves 
afterward that ye might believe him.’’! These words, how- 
ever, though they may imply a close connection between a 
penitent self-abasement and faith of an effective sort, cannot 
be regarded as teaching a logical antecedence of repentance in 
general to faith, The meaning is that the Pharisees needed 
to come down to the plane of a genuine and penitent humility 
before they could reach the goal of a true faith, not that an 
incipient faith could be dispensed with in bringing them down 
to that plane. The position of faith is basal; but since all 
spiritual activities are closely interwoven, or mutually con- 
ditioning, faith cannot be largely operative in a subject of 
redemption apart from the disposition which is denoted by 
repentance. The man who closes his eyes to the demerits 
of his sins is not in condition to look with lively faith to Him 
who came to take away his sins. [If it is true that the contem. 
plation of the atoning Saviour is needed to produce a prope 
consciousness of sin, a vital sense of personal unworthiness, 





Matt. xxi. 32. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 437 


it is also true that a penitent recognition of sin is an incentive 
to an earnest contemplation. 

A like order of considerations applies to obedience, viewed 
as a practical fulfillment of evangelical precepts. Faith is the 
logical antecedent of obedience. It is itself a kind of funda: 
mental inward obedience, as being the act and the attitude 
of self-surrender to a superior object of trust and obligation. 
As such it prepares the way for the fulfillment in detail of 
divine precepts. But, while arising from faith, obedience re- 
acts upon its source. Just as energy ox will needs for its 
development, besides the general choice of an end, a pursuit 
of that end through all the difficulties and obstacles which 
are met in close contact with men and nature, so faith needs 
to go out into the details of righteous conduct to reach the 
proper measure of strength and robustness. 

Good works may be regarded as but another name for obedi- 
ence, as the term is here employed. From what has been said 
it follows that they cannot be considered codrdinate with faith 
in the ground of salvation. Important vehicles they are for 
the expression of faith and for its development through a con- 
genial exercise ; but as specific acts can never be placed in the 
moral scale on a parity with the inner disposition which is their 
vital source, so works can never be codrdinate with faith in the 
ground of divine acceptance. The all-penetrating glance of 
God sees the faith, which is the motive power and guarantee 
of right works, the moment it arises. God has the right man, 
the man right at heart, in that moment. To assume, then, 
that He cannot accept him till after the performance of a defi- 
nite quantum of works, is to assume that God is not content 
with the right man, and holds him off from favor until a pre- 
scribed appendage has been added —a notion that can pass 
only with those who have lost the sense for reality, and have 
transformed God into.a narrow and technical being. The 
man who has the right inner disposition is already a son 


of God. He may need development in the character which 
29 


438 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


belongs to this sacred relation; but he is within the circle of 
sonship. On the other hand, the man who is destitute of 
this disposition does not get into that circle by any amount 
of performances which fall short of ethical self-surrender. 
His performances may indeed become an obstacle to his ad- 
mission, in so far as they minister to a conceit of self-right- 
eousness. Works that are good and wholesome in themselves, 
not to mention the eccentric expedients of an ambitious asceti- 
cism, may have this result through the perverting influence 
of a false confidence in them. 

Since faith takes the initiative and repentance and evangeli- 
cal obedience stand in a dependent relation thereto, it is evi- 
dently permissible in general references to the subject to 
speak of faith as the condition of salvation. It is the sole con- 
dition in the sense that nothing else is coordinate with itself. 
But since repentance and evangelical obedience are closely 
connected with faith, and react upon it for its perfecting, if 
we look beyond the mere beginning, the initial act of union 
with God, these two may fitly be mentioned as secondary con- 
ditions of salvation. They must be interwoven with faith in 
the truly progressive spiritual life, and only such a life is secure 
against reversion into spiritual barrenness. 

The nature of faith has been intimated in the foregoing 
discussion of its primacy among the conditions of salvation. 
In its religious use the term denotes not merely intellectual 
assent, but also self-committal or trust. It signifies an act, or 
better, an attitude, of trustful self-committal to an object with 
which, to a greater or less degree, a superior or ideal character 
is associated. The proper ideal, which constitutes the ulti- 
mate object of faith, is a Divine Person. It is not any collec- 
tion of sayings or instructions. These may direct thought to 
a Divine Person and assist reason and imagination to frame a 
mental picture of Him. But in the nature of the case they 
can be only a secondary object of faith. When a living faith 
has arisen in a Divine Person, then, by necessary consequence, 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 439 


there follows reliance upon that which has rational warrant 
for being regarded as representative of His thought or good- 
pleasure. Faith in the Bible can be, in advance of trust in 
the God who is back of the Bible, only superficial and conven- 
tional. The greater here includes the less. Hearty reliance 
upon God first prepares for genuine repose upon His oracles. 
Through trustful self-surrender to a personal will we are made 
ready to rely upon everything which is approved to us as an 
authentic manifestation of that will. 

In its general theistic sense, faith is an ethical bearing 
toward the Supreme Being, an attitude toward Him of trust- 
ful self-committal or self-surrender. In its specifically Chris- 
tian sense it is an attitude of trust and self-surrender toward 
God as revealed in Jesus Christ. Viewed as to its essential 
character, faith is the same in the one relation as in the other. 
But since the revelation in Christ brings God peculiarly near, 
and gives the consummate expression of His grace and love, 
it naturally solicits to the largest, deepest, and most tender 
reliance upon God. In spiritual potency, therefore, the specif- 
ically Christian faith must be regarded as outranking all 
other. 

Is faith in this sense necessary to salvation? Not strictly, 
since otherwise the Old Testament saints must have fallen 
short of being saved. The specifically Christian faith is 
doubtless incumbent upon those who have the opportunity 
to exercise it, and is universally a requisite for saved men, in 
the sense that sooner or later everyone of them must confess 
the mediatorial position and lordship of Jesus Christ. Buta 
trustful self-surrender to the highest ideal that is known is not 
a bad pledge of the same kind of a surrender to the highest 
ideal in fact, when that shall become known. The one who 
makes the former surrender is on the right path, and, if he 
does not turn back, will undoubtedly emerge into the full light 
and liberty of the children of God. The theory which shuts 
out the heathen ex masse from the possibility of salvation, 


440 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


because of their lack of faith in its specifically Christian chas- 
acter, reflects too seriously on the equity and mercy of God 
to be tolerated for a moment. 

In defining faith as an ethical bearing, or an attitude of 
trustful self-surrender, in relation to a Divine Person, we have 
not used the terms employed in the one formal definition which 
is given in the Scriptures. . The difference, however, is not in 
the line of contrariety but only of compass. The definition 
in Heb. xi. 1 is restricted to a particular aspect of faith, 
namely, the grasp which it has upon a promised good, or a 
reality which is testified to rather than seen. [rom this point 
of view it may be described as “a firm confidence in regard to 
that which is hoped for, a being convinced of things which are 
invisible.” Evidently back of this confidence in promise or 
testimony must be the confiding attitude toward the Divine 
Person who promises or testifies. 

From the nature of faith it follows that it stands in a 
friendly relation with knowledge, rather than in sharp con- 
trast. Some degree of knowledge is necessary to the exis- 
tence of faith, and increase of knowledge furnishes a favorable 
ground for an increase of faith, since God is an ideal that will 
stand investigation, and increasing knowledge of Him tends to 
intensify the spirit of trustful self-surrender. On the other 
hand, faith is a medium of inward experience, and so of re- 
ligious knowledge: Thus the two work together for mutual 
advancement. Accordingly an eminent representative of 
Roman Catholic theology must be regarded as greatly distort- 
ing the true notion of faith, when he says that it is simply 
assent of mind to whatever God proposes to us as an object 
of belief, whether it is understood by us or not, and is better 
defined by ignorance than by knowledge.! This is little short 
of caricature. The truth is, faith denotes a fundamental bear- 
ing of the moral personality toward God, a trustful self-sur- 


1 Bellarmin, De Justif., Lib. i. Chap. 5, 7- 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 441 


render of a human to a Divine Person, rather than an assent to 
enigmas, and is in intimate association with knowledge. 


III. — SALVATION IN ITS OBJECTIVE ASPECT, OR JUSTIFI- 
CATION WITH Its ACCOMPANIMENT OF ADOPTION AND 
HEIRSHIP. 


From a consideration of the instrumentality of faith we 
naturally pass at once to an analysis of the idea of salvation, 
or the benefit which faith appropriates. In an analysis of this 
kind the distinction which first comes to view is that between 
an objective and a subjective aspect. The former is expressed 
preéminently by the term justification, with which may also 
be associated adoption and heirship. 

In the New Testament the Pauline writings are more largely 
and directly occupied with the theme of justification than are 
any others. It is fitting, then, to begin with Paul’s conception 
of justification, and later to note how far other New Testa- 
ment references are in line with that conception. 

It was the verdict of early Protestant theology that Paul 
used the word justification (8txatwors, dixacodv) in the objective 
or judicial sense, denoting thereby not the inner quality of its 
subject but his standing with God as being freed from condem- 
nation. That this verdict was the true one is very largely the 
conclusion of free scholarship in the present, that is, of scholar- 
ship which is not under the constraint of an inflexible ecclesi- 
astical authority. It may be accepted as representing the 
actual usage of the apostle, provided the intimate association 
between the objective and subjective phase of salvation which 
subsisted in his thought is not overlooked. This interpreta- 
tion rests upon no technical etymological ground, but is in- 
volved in the texture of the Pauline argument. 

In the first place, the objective sense is implied by the 
Pauline sentences respecting the impossibility of justification 


442 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


by the works of the law, sentences which, taken in the aggre- 
gate, indicate that justification in this way is impossible simply 
because the law will always condemn men on the score of an 
imperfect fulfillment of its precepts. The failure of the legal 
method to bring justification is thus identified with the con- 
demnation or curse of the law.!_ But if lack of justification is 
made to signify condemnation, it is quite clear that justification 
is designed to signify an approving sentence on the part of God, 
or a standing in His favor. 

In the second place, evidence that Paul attached an objective 
sense to the term is found_in sentences which place justifica- 
tion in direct antithesis with condemnation. ‘ Being, therefore 
justified by faith let us have peace with God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ.’ “ Not as through one that sinned, so also is 
the free gift : for the judgment came of one unto condemnation, 
but the free gift came of many trespasses unto justification.” 8 
“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is 
God that justifieth ; who is he that shall condemn ? It is Christ 
Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, 
who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession 
for us.” 4 

In the third place, Paul’s use of the term “reckon” or 
“impute ’’ (Aoyiozac) in connections where justification was the 
theme of discussion implies that he attached to justification 
the judicial or objective meaning. Here belong passages of 
such unequivocal sense as these: “ What saith the Scripture ? 
And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him 
for righteousness. Now to him that worketh, the reward is 
not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that 
worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, 
his faith is reckoned for righteousness. Even as David also 
pronounceth blessing upon the man, unto whom God reckoneth 


1 Compare Rom. iii. 20 and Gal ii. 16 with Gal. iii. 10, 11. 
2 Rom. v. I. 3 Rom. v. 16. 4 Rom. viii. 33, 34. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 443 


righteousness apart from works, saying, Blessed are they 
whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin.” ! 
“Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was 
reckoned unto him; but for our sake also, unto whom it shall 
be reckoned, who believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord 
from the dead.” ? ‘Even as Abraham believed God and it 
was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Know then that 
they which be of faith, the same are the sons of Abraham.’’? 

Coinciding with the evidence for the objective sense which 
is furnished in the tenor of Paul’s representations is the fact 
that preceding and contemporary Jewish usage was accommo- 
dated to that sense. In the Septuagint, dixatv is employed 
generally, not to say exclusively, in the objective significance. 
It has this significance also in the pseudepigraphic writings, 
such as the Psalms of Solomon, Fourth Ezra, and the Apoc- 
alypse of Baruch.* 

A natural association with justification belongs to Paul’s ex- 
pression, “the righteousness of God,” in so far as it is used 
by him to indicate a righteousness antithetical to that of the 
law and graciously bestowed upon man.°® In its fundamental 
idea this righteousness seems to denote an approved standing 
with God. It is God’s righteousness in the sense that He is 
its author, the source whence comes the sentence which takes 
a man out from a state of condemnation and consequent 
spiritual deprivation. It is made man’s righteousness in the 
sense that by his faith he is set in the relation of an approved 
child of God, and given a title to all the benefits which belong 
with that relation.® 

As respects the attainment of justification, Paul leaves no 


1 Rom. iv. 3-8. 8 Gal. iii. 6, 7. 

2 Rom. iv. 23, 24. 4 Sanday, Comm. on Romans, p. 31. 

5 See Rom. i. 17, iii. 21, 22; x. 3; 2 Cor. v. 21; Phil. iii. 9. 

6 Compare Pfleiderer, Das Urchristenthum, pp. 251, 252; Holtzmann, Neutest. 
Theol. II. 126-130; Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, pp. 420, 425. 


A44 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


doubt as to the preéminent, we may say exclusive, instrumen- 
tality of faith. The passages already referred to furnish com- 
plete proof that he allowed nothing to be codrdinate with faith 
in this matter. As for works, they are excluded from the 
ground of justification by the whole tenor of his argument, as 
well as by such sentences as these: ‘“‘ Now apart from the law 
a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed 
by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God 
through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe. ... 
We reckon, therefore, that a man is justified by faith apart 
from the works of the law.’’! By the law in such connections 
Paul evidently understood the whole content of the ethical code 
as well as of the ceremonial. His declarations, therefore, 
amount to an absolute denial of the possibility of justification 
by works on the part of man as he is actually conditioned. 

Excluding works in this decisive fashion from the ground 
of justification, Paul evidently did not think of faith as a kind 
of inner work of such peculiar value as to merit justification. 
On the contrary, he conceived of justification by faith as dis- 
tinctly antithetical to justification on the score of merits. He 
viewed it as the method of grace, the way in which God’s free 
gift was imparted, and so describes it when he speaks of “ be- 
ing justified freely by His grace through the redemption that 
is in Christ Jesus.’’* In his thought faith was not so much 
the meritorious or procuring cause of justification as a con- 
dition, clemently and graciously appointed by God, of receiv- 
ing the pardon and sonship which are made available unto men 
through the redemptive economy. 

Still it 1s not necessary to assume that Paul ignored or 
lightly rated the religious worth of faith. He could conceive 
with perfect consistency both that faith holds a high place in 
the scale of religious dispositions, and that no disposition of 
which a sinful man is capable can earn the priceless treasure 





1 Rom. iii. 21, 22, 28. Compare Gal. ii. 16. 2 Rom. iii. 24. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION, 445 


of acceptance with God and heirship to eternal life. In fact, 
faith in the sense of the apostle is a very vital thing, a poten- 
tiality of righteousness, if not in its own virtue, at least in 
virtue of its intrinsic connections. It is viewed as uniting its 
subject so intimately with the atoning Saviour that the experi- 
ence of the latter in suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection be- 
comes in a measure the experience of the former. It brings 
into a relation where the old life of sin is an utter anomaly. 
«We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein ?” } 
While apparently ignoring the pathway of legal requirement, 
and turning from it to repose on the free grace of God, faith 
after all enthrones the law by planting a new principle of obedi- 
ence in the heart. “Do we then make the law of none effect 
through faith? God forbid; nay, we establish the law.” ? 
Though strongly emphasizing the free grace of God in justi- 
fication, Paul was not so grudging of compliment to faith but 
that he could speak of it as being imputed for righteousness, 
that is, in God’s generous and compassionate economy. Herein 
he stands in contrast with the Westminster divines, who, prob- 
ably with the view of censuring an Arminian representation, 
went in the face of Paul’s phraseology by asserting that faith 
is not imputed as righteousness to those who believe in Christ.® 
In their view the true statement is that the righteousness of 
Christ is imputed. But Paul never speaks of this kind of im- 
putation, and it is doubtful if he affords a proper ground for 
inferring it. “The representation,’ says Weiss, “that God 
imputes to man the righteousness of Christ is not Pauline.” * 
Enough is conceded to the notion of imputation when it is 
granted that, within the economy of grace founded through 
the atoning work of Christ, faith, as self-surrendering trust in 
the Redeemer, is compassionately allowed to introduce to the 


1 Rom. vi. 2. 2 Rom. iii. 31. 8 Confession, Chap. XI. 
4 Bib. Theol. des Neuen Testaments, § 82, b. Note 3. Compare Bruce, St. 
Paul’s Conception of Christianity, pp. 117-153. 


446 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


benefits of that economy, that is, to full pardon and to filial 
communion with God. 

The above exposition of Paul’s theory amounts to a criticism 
of the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification. Besides in- 
cluding under the term justification the sanctification which 
in the usage characteristic of Paul holds simply the place of 
an inseparable accompaniment, the Roman Catholic theory is 
un-Pauline in the following particulars: (1) It exalts the effi- 
cacy and necessity of the sacraments, and especially of the 
sacrament of baptism in the attainment of justification. The 
apostle makes no reference to baptism in his whole discussion 
of the subject, except for an illustrative purpose, or in the 
same way that he alludes to the crucifixion, using the one as 
well as the other to symbolize the great transition through 
which one passes when he is united in faith to Christ. On 
the contrary, Bellarmin says: “The Catholic faith does not 
allow the grace of justification to be immediately apprehended 
by faith alone and applied to men, but wills that the sacraments 
also be necessarily required to this end, so that if faith exists 
in any one, though it be in the highest degree, it will not 
nevertheless justify unless the sacrament is received in fact 
or in desire.”’! In this Bellarmin but states a necessary 
inference from the authoritative decisions of the Council of 
Trent. (2) The Roman Catholic theory stands in contrast 
with the Pauline, not only in the prominence which it gives 
to the sacraments in the justifying process, but also in gen- 
eral declarations of the inadequacy of faith for justification. 
While Paul pictures faith as the open door to justification, 
the Tridentine doctors declare that the door of faith is not 
wide enough by itself to admit anyone, thus showing that 
either their conception of faith or their notion of its office 
was un-Pauline. (3) In the Roman Catholic theory good 
works are described as means of an increase of justification, 








} De Sacramentis, Lib. i. Cap. 22. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 447 


and declared to merit, when performed by one in a state of 
grace, the highest benefits, not excepting eternal life. Paul 
knows nothing of this piecemeal progressive justification on 
the basis of works. The progress which he contemplates is 
that of one who has entered by faith into the consciousness 
of sonship, and who, instead of laboring to earn justification, 
lives out the effective spiritual impulses which have come to 
him in justification. (4) The Roman Catholic theory excludes 
the notion of a full pardon, and assumes that satisfaction must 
be rendered, either in this life or in purgatory, for every 
mortal sin committed after baptism, unless perchance an in- 
dulgence, the offspring of papal discretion, comes in to cancel 
the satisfaction due. It is not too much to say that this at- 
tachment of a clog to a forgiven and reconciled child of God 
isin glaring contrast to the tone of Paul’s teaching, and could 
have been viewed by him only with disgust. 

It may be granted that the wide contrast between the 
Roman Catholic theory and the Pauline is due in part to 
the different meaning and compass which they assign re- 
spectively to the term justification. But, after all due allow- 
ance has been made on this score, it must be admitted that 
the Roman Catholic theory brings in much of the legalism 
against which Paul urged his vehement polemic. Taken in 
the sum total of its specifications, it is to be described as 
sacerdotal and legal rather than evangelical; and its ten- 
dency is rather to create a consciousness of connection with a 
mechanism of divine-human appliances than that joyful con- 
sciousness of sonship which Paul conceived to spring directly 
out of justifying faith. 

The scope and meaning assigned by Paul to faith imply 
that justification ensues as the result of a personal transaction 
with God. There is indeed a universal phase in the scheme 
of reconciliation. By the fact that the economy of grace is 
provided and published God is exhibited as reconciled to men 
in the sense that He has purposes of mercy rather than of 


448 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


wrath toward them. But while the existence of the economy 
presents God in this general attitude, it does not banish the 
consideration that the economy may rather increase the con- 
demnation of the individual than secure his actual reconcilia- 
tion unless he fulfills the conditions which it contemplates. 
The fulfillment of these conditions is as distinctly individual 
and personal as any act can be. So Paul assumes it to be 
again and again. Ritschl’s theory that justification is the prop- 
erty of the religious brotherhood or communion, as the recip- 
ient of the revelation of God in Christ, and that the individual 
partakes of justification in virtue of his inclusion in the 
communion, finds no support in the apostle’s language. He 
assumes that Abraham was justified as an individual when he 
believed, and that his experience may be taken as a pattern 
in essential particulars of the way that each may hope to be 
justified! He says, “Christ is the end of the law unto right- 
eousness to every one that believeth ;” and he follows up the 
declaration with this description of a thoroughly personal trans- 
action, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; 
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” He 
makes justification synchronous with an inner renovation, as 
though the same faith which procures the sentence of forgive- 
ness must by its very nature bring into transforming relation 
with Christ, and thus indicates that in his thought justification 
was distinctly identified with the experience of believers in 
their individual capacity.? 

Paul makes the objective ground of justification the atoning 
work of Christ which came to its culminating expression in 
His death. A very clear statement of this position is con- 
tained in Rom. ili. 24, 25; and it may be said to be woven 
into the texture of the Pauline Epistles.t It appears therefore 


1 Rom. v.; Gal. iii. 6, 7. 2 Rom. x. 4, Io. 

3 Rom. viii. 1, 2; 1 Cor. vi. 11; Gal. ii. 15-20. 

4 Rom. v. 6-8, 18, 109, viii. 3; 1 Cor. xv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 14,15, 21; Gal. iii. 
13; Eph. 1. 7, v.; Col. i. 13,14; 1 Thess. v. 9, 10; 1 Tim. ii: 5, 6, 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 449 


aside from the general current of the apostle’s thought when 
he specifies a distinct connection between the resurrection of 
Christ and justification.’ Perhaps his meaning in this repre- 
sentation was that the resurrection conditioned justification as 
affording a necessary ground of faith in the atoning work 
of Christ as a whole. So many commentators infer. Says 
Meyer: “The resurrection of the sacrificed One was required 
to produce in man the faith through which alone the objective 
fact of the atoning offering of Jesus could have the effect of 
justification subjectively, because Christ is the ‘ propitiation 
through faith.’ Without His resurrection therefore the aton- 
ing work of His death would have remained without subjective 
appropriation.” Whatever may have been the precise thought 
of Paul in this connection, it savors of arbitrariness to take 
an infrequent representation, instead of one that enters into 
the very framework of his exposition of the Christian system, 
as supplying adequate data for determining his doctrine of 
justification. 

If we pass from the Pauline writings to other portions of 
the New Testament, we discover no such distinct elaboration 
of the doctrine of justification as that which the apostle to the 
Gentiles has furnished; nevertheless the main elements of his 
theory are not sought in vain. James, it must be confessed, 
in his recorded views falls short of Paul’s teaching. His main 
contention that a faith is dead which does not issue into works 
of righteousness is Pauline enough: but he is not at pains to 
closely define the function of works, and as a matter of fact 
leaves one free to assume that they are codrdinate with faith 
in the ground or condition of justification — an assumption 
which Paul’s theory does not tolerate. By supposing a differ- 
ent use of terms on the part of the two writers much can be 
done to modify the apparent contrast between their respective 
teachings; a deduction, however, of the characteristic doctrine 


1 Rom, iv. 25, x. 9. 


*s 


450 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


of Paul from the language of James is quite out of the ques- 
tion. At least, it is not to be deduced from that paragraph 
in which the latter treats directly of justification! A nearer 
approach to the Pauline platform appears in those sentences 
of his which emphasize the liberality of God, the descent of 
every good and perfect gift from Him, and the necessity of 
faith in effectively asking for these gifts.” 

In the spirit and tenor of Christ’s teachings, as recorded in 
the Gospels, there are very distinct anticipations of Paul’s doc- 
trine. The core of that doctrine is contained in the parable 
of the Pharisee and the publican, only the parable puts the 
truth in a more popular form and with the coloring belonging 
toa Jewish rather than toa specifically Christian environment. 
Before the truth could be set forth in its distinctively Christian 
form, it was necessary that the full significance of Christ’s 
mediatorial work should be in view. Naturally enough, then, 
Paul’s terminology is wanting ; his idea, however, that justifi- 
cation is God’s gift to man’s lowliness and faith, rather than 
wages granted in return for his performances, is clearly mani- 
fest in the parable. In the same line are declarations that 
whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little 
child shall not enter therein.* A Pauline view is also antici- 
pated in sentences which represent the life in union with 
Christ as rather a life of freedom and sonship than of servi- 
tude.® More directly in terms, though scarcely more truly in 
fact, Paul’s doctrine is anticipated in passages which represent 
faith upon the Son as the medium of eternal life, or make un- 
belief the ground of condemnation, This point of view is more 
or less clearly discernible in various Epistles, as well as in the 
recorded discourses of Christ.® 








1 James ii. 14-26. 2 James i. 5, 6, 17. 3 Luke xviii. 9-17. 

4 Matt. xviii. 3, 4; Mark x. 15; Luke xviii. 17. 

5 John viii. 36, 37, xv. 15. 

6 John iii. 15, 18, 36, vi. 29, 47; 1 John v. 10; 1 Pet. i. 8,9; Heb. iv. 2, 3, 
230, 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 451! 


If Paul’s theory is to be described as agreeable in its essence 
to New Testament thought, it must also be characterized as 
consistent with sound philosophy. It is certainly not open 
to the charge of being artificial or arbitrary. Supposing an 
economy of grace, self-surrendering faith or trust in the Divine 
Person who represents the economy is the rational requirement 
for approval. A faith of this kind is intrinsically a pledge and 
potency of a new life, such as it is worthy of God’s wisdom 
and generosity to accept, and to crown with the bestowal of a 
consciousness of acceptance; since true development in the 
life of divine love and communion must proceed on the basis 
of a filial and not of a servile consciousness. 

It may be admitted that, if Paul had had less occasion to 
clarify the condition of entering into the life of justification, 
and had been able to devote more specific attention to growth 
in that life, he might have given somewhat greater prominence 
to the secondary conditions of salvation, namely, repentance 
and evangelical obedience. But, on the other hand, it must 
be granted that these secondary conditions can be healthfully 
fulfilled only as the great Pauline principle of faith is dominant. 
Divorced from that principle they lead inevitably toa round of 
ascetic and Pharisaic observances, a legality incompatible with 
largeness and depth of spiritual life. Doubtless the doctrine 
of justification by faith needs to be guarded against being 
made a cover for a light estimate of practical activity. But 
in its proper character, as has been well said, “It is the charter 
of Christian liberty for all time; of emancipation from legalism 
with its treadmill service, and fear and gloom and uncertainty ; 
from laborious self-salvation, whether by religious ceremonial or 
by orthodox opinions, or by the magic power of sacraments.” } 

As has been stated, adoption belongs with justification in 
the objective phase of salvation. It has indeed an intimate 
association with regeneration, since being born of the Spirit is 











1 Bruce, St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, p. 148. 


452 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


the needful interior ground of spiritual sonship.1 But sonship 
may be regarded as denoting anew relation as well asa new 
character, and the former aspect is expressed by adoption. 
The term is significant of an inseparable accompaniment of jus- 
tification. Perhaps it would be better to say that it describes 
justification itself from a particular point of view. Nothing 
but sin alienates from the true filial relation with God. It 
follows, then, that when sin is pardoned there is immediate 
instatement in that relation, and that the awakening of the 
filial consciousness becomes at once appropriate. Paul was 
but illustrating the intrinsic connections of the subject, when 
his discourse on justification ran into a fervid inculcation of 
the idea of adoption, or sonship, and its inward attestation.” 

It is no doubt a biblical conception that men universally 
are in a sense children of God. This conception is implicit 
in the thought of the divine fatherhood which encompasses, 
like a warm and radiant firmament, the discourses of Jesus. 
A passing reference to the same is contained in Paul’s address 
on Mars’ hill. Adoption, therefore, is not significant of a 
transition from mere creaturehood to sonship. It signifies 
rather a transition from a standing, in which the high privi- 
leges of sonship are put in abeyance by interruption of 
communion with God, to a standing in which they are appro- 
priately made available for actual enjoyment. It is God’s 
recognition of the privilege of one, who is no longer an alien 
in spirit, to be treated as a son. 

An element in the practical value of the doctrine of sonship 
toward God is the basis which it supplies for a high concep- 
tion of human brotherhood. ‘This was not overlooked by the 
New Testament writers. John argued that he who is begotten 
of the God of love must love his brother.4- And Paul conceived 
that all artificial distinctions and barriers between men dis- 


A Jonna. 12713: 2 Rom. viii. 1-17; Gal. iii. 26-29, iv. I-7. 
3 Acts xvii. 28, 29. 41 John iv. 7~12. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 453 


appear before the common and lofty privilege of sonship. 
«Ye are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ... . 
There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither 
bond or free, there can be no male and female: for ye are all 
one in Christ Jesus.” } 

That the children of God are heirs of an incorruptible in- 
heritance is everywhere assumed in the New Testament. The 
reason of the case admits of nothing less. Heirship must go 
with sonship, and heirship to something commensurate with 
the divine riches. The description of the inheritance, though 
compassed in brief lines by the sacred writers, leaves nothing 
out which hope or aspiration could wish to have included.? 
Next to the character and the atoning work of Christ, there 
is nothing so well adapted as this description to mirror the 
meanness and frivolity of sin. 


IV.— SALVATION IN ITS SUBJECTIVE ASPECT, OR AWAKEN- 
ING, REGENERATION, AND SANCTIFICATION. 


The contrast which is drawn in the Scriptures between the 
love of God and the sinfulness of men implies that God's 
seeking must precede that of men, or that the primary impulse 
to spiritual renovation must come from Him. Man is indeed 
expected to ask, to seek, and to knock at the door ; but logi- 
cally prior to all this is the divine knocking at the door of 
man’s heart, and the coming of the’divine messenger to seek 
and to save the lost.2 The impulse to turn toward communion 
with God depends on the impact of divine agency upon the 
human spirit. This initial agency may be described by the 
term awakening, which thus denotes a pressure from the divine 


1 Gal. iii. 26, 28. 
2 Matt. xxv. 34; Luke x. 20; Rom. viii. 17, 21; Gal. iv. 7; 1 Pet. i. 3-5; 
1 John iii. 2; Rev. xxi. 7. 
8 Rev. iii. 20; Luke xix. tro. 
30 


454 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


side which is unsought by men, but whose intent they can 
cither follow out or resist. 

Awakening is not so much regeneration as a preparation 
for the same. It is true that some theologians, especially 
of the strict Calvinistic school, have preferred to understand 
by regeneration the primary act of God in man’s spiritual 
recovery, in which almighty power operates upon a purely 
passive subject, and creates therein a new spiritual sensi- 
bility. But this view, as will be shown a little further on, 
is not in harmony with the scriptural representation, which 
assumes a conditioning agency in man, or a consenting rather 
than a purely passive subject of regeneration. The office of 
awakening is to produce the sense of need and the measure 
of aspiration and desire which are requisite to make one a 
willing subject in the consummation of his spiritual sonship. 

Regeneration is so thoroughly a biblical idea that even in 
the Old Testament it comes well-nigh to a full-orbed expres- 
sion. The great prophets of Israel, sorrowing over the practi- 
cal apostasy of the nation, and convinced that nothing but a 
fundamental change of disposition could induce a true keeping 
of the covenant, were saved from despair by their faith in the 
power of God’s Spirit to work this great change. Penetrating 
to the inmost that is in man, the Divine Spirit, as they con- 
ceived, is able to form a new heart and a new spirit, a temper 
reverent, tender, and obedient, in place of former hardness and 
perversity. 

In the New Testament the doctrine of regeneration is pre- 
sented in a variety of forms. The Synoptical Gospels, while 
they do not treat of it formally, inculcate it very emphatically 
by insisting that a right heart is the necessary antecedent of 
right conduct, that the tree must be made good before the 
fruit can be good, and that all who would enter the kingdom 





1 Ezek. xi. 19, xviii. 31, xxxvi. 25-27, xxxvii. 23, 24; Jer. iv. 4, ix. 23-26: 
Isa. i. 18-20; Ps. li. 10, 11; Deut. xxx. 6. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 455 


of heaven must be converted and become as little children,! 
In John’s writings, terms are used which are in close affinity 
with the etymological sense of regeneration. The subject of 
spiritual renovation is said to be born from above, to be born 
of the Spirit, to be born or begotten of God.? The first of 
these phrases is also rendered “born anew”; but so far asa 
warrant for the term regeneration is concerned, it is not, of 
course, at all necessary to insist upon this rendering, since 
a spiritual birth, represented as subsequent to natural birth, 
is, in idea, a re-birth. Paul has various figures for expressing 
the thought of regeneration, all of them indicative of his lively 
conviction of the profound change effected when one passes 
from the life of sinful license, or mere legal striving, into a 
true appropriation of the grace of God in Christ. He is free 
to describe the change as a dying to sin and a rising in new- 
ness of life ;? as a newcreation ;* as a putting off the old man 
and a putting on of the new man. In language quite diverse 
from these symbolical phrases, but no less expressive of pro- 
found transformation, Paul teaches also that the implanting of 
love must be regarded as central to the work of renewing and 
glorifying the nature of man; at least, he teaches this by im- 
plication, inasmuch as he represents love to be the preéminent 
gift of the Holy Spirit, the crown of the virtues, the possession 
which has unfading significance and value.® 

It accords with the character of the Bible, as a book of 
practical edification, that it should in general describe regenera- 
tion by figurative terms which are striking to the imagination, 
and thus far more impressive than any abstract terms could 


1 Matt. xv. 18-20, vii. 17, 18, vi. 22-24, xviii. 3; Mark vii. 20-23, x. 15, 16 
Luke xviii. 17. 

2 John iii. 3-8, i. 12; 1 John iii. 9, iv. 7, v. 1, 4. 

8 Rom. vi. 2-6, 11, 14, vii. 5, 6, viii. 2, 10; Gal. ii. 20; Col. ti 13. 

* Gal. vi. 15; 2 Cor. v. 17; Eph. ii. 10. 

5 Eph. iv. 22-24; Col. iii. to. 

© 1 Cor. xii. 31 to xiii. 


456 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


be. Moreover, the subject is so hidden that literal descrip- 
tion may be regarded as impossible. If we attempt to trans- 
late the biblical figures into more exact terms, we encounter a 
double danger: on the one hand, the danger of making so 
much of regeneration as to compromise the continuous identity 
of its subject ; on the other, the danger of making too little of 
it to do credit to the energy of the supernatural power with 
which it is scripturally and rationally associated. It is an ex- 
aggeration to suppose that it imports any new faculty into a 
man ; it falls short of the truth to represent that it is signifi- 
cant only of a new activity or direction of some one faculty. 
Doubtless the greater stress falls upon the new direction which 
regeneration gives to the will, but its effect must be regarded 
as reaching to other factors of man’s being. Following the 
order of emphasis we may say, in the will regeneration 
initiates or consummates a supreme choice of God and His 
kingdom of righteousness; in the sensibilities it enlivens the 
nobler order of feelings; in the intellect it supplies at least 
the data of a new inward experience, and thus, in some measure, 
clarifies and enlarges the perception of spiritual things, though 
by no means forestalling the opportunity and demand for a pro. 
gressive increase of spiritual knowledge. 

The deep-reaching and supernatural character of regenera- 
tion does not necessarily imply that it always makes within 
the sphere of consciousness a specially distinct and marked 
crisis. The intensity of the apprehension of change depends 
naturally upon the amount of resistance to be overcome. One 
who has nurtured intemperate impulses, which urge with great 
momentum toward the life of earthliness and sin, is not likely 
to have the current of his life reversed without a vivid sense 
of inward revolution. On the other hand, one who has felt 
from early childhood the attraction of heavenly things may 
yield as quietly to the divine solicitation as the flower opens 
itself to the sunlight, and thus be conscious of no sharp division 
between two stages in his life. Great as is the seeming con- 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 457 


trast between the supposed cases, it is purely circumstantial. 
Christian character in the second instance is as remote from 
the plane of mere nature, and rests as truly on the ground of 
spiritual re-birth, as in the first instance. 

While regeneration is God’s act of renewing man, it is also 
man’s act of turning unto God; at least, this turning is in- 
separably associated with the divine act of renewal. Consid- 
ered from this point of view the transformation is fitly termed 
conversion. Man’s agency may be very small as compared 
with that of God. But, although man is a humble agent, it 
must still be contended that he is an agent, and not a mere 
thing. Even in the matter of regeneration God respects his 
agency, and makes it a part of His plan to introduce him into 
spiritual sonship only on condition of an initial turning or atti- 
tude of consent on his part. This is sufficiently indicated by 
those scriptural sentences which speak of grieving or resisting 
the Holy Spirit, and especially by those which assume that 
this resistance may be carried to an intensity of antagonism 
which is destructive of further spiritual opportunity.2 To 
assume the possibility of such a resistance is inconsistent with 
the notion of complete passivity in relation to regeneration. 
If a man can so far resist the Spirit, and does not, he wills in 
effect not to resist, or to let God’s will be accomplished. As 
John presents the subject, it is the one who accepts the over- 
tures of sonship that becomes a child of God. “As many as 
received Him, to them gave He the right to become the chil- 
dren of God, even to them that believed on His name.” ? 

An impartial survey of all the facts that can be gathered 
favors the conclusion that in regeneration there is a union of 
persuasion and power. The former element is recognized in 
those verses of Scripture which speak of the instrumentality 
of truth in the work of spiritual renovation.* In not a few in- 


1 Acts vii. 51; Eph. iv. 30. 
2 Matt. xii. 32; Mark iii. 29; Luke xii. 10; 1 John v. 16. 
8 John i. 12. 4 John xvii. 17; James i. 18; 1 Pet i. 23; 2 Pet.i. 4. 


458 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


stances it has been assumed that these verses are fundamen- 
tally descriptive of the method of regeneration, or that the 
Spirit works therein solely by the instrumentality of truth. But 
this seems to us to be putting that part of a subject which is 
open to construction for the whole. It is more in harmony 
with the sum total of scriptural data to admit a background of 
mystery in the moral renewal of a man, a form of immediate 
divine working which is beyond the scope of our analysis and 
description. The words of Christ to Nicodemus, as well as 
some of the strong expressions of the apostolic writers, invite 
to this admission. The scriptural and rational view of the 
divine immanence also suggests that God may come nearer 
to souls in their moral life than is implied in the use simply 
of mental images or representations — the only form in which 
truth can be conceived to operate. There is likewise a difficulty 
in the way of making truth the sole instrumentality in regen- 
eration, inasmuch as a good measure of spiritual sensibility 
seems to be a prerequisite to deep effect by spiritual teaching. 
Providential discipline may indeed serve as an ally of truth, 
and greatly add to its efficiency in a given case; but there is 
abundant room for still another factor in the great task of 
reversing the current of a soul that is being swept on by sinful 
tendencies. On the other hand, however, it has to be granted 
that an inferior range of truth seems to afford a limited oppor- 
tunity for the working of the Holy Spirit, since otherwise the 
ground would be wanting for the New Testament assumption 
that the revelation of truth in Christ prepares the way for the 
special ministry of the Spirit. To meet all the requirements 
of the subject, we are led to the theory of which a well-guarded 
statement has been given in the following words of a New 
England theologian: “In regenerating men, God in some re- 
spects acts directly and immediately on the soul, and in some 
respects He acts in connection with and by means of the truth. 
He does not regenerate them by the truth alone, and He does 
not regenerate them without the truth. His mediate and His 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 459 


immediate influences cannot be distinguished by conscious- 
ness, nor can their respective spheres be accurately deter- 
mined by reason.” ! 

It has been concluded that regeneration so affects the will, 
the affections, and the intelligence, as to establish in its sub- 
ject a preponderant tendency toward God and His kingdom of 
righteousness. But a right tendency is not necessarily one 
of perfect and indefectible strength. The complex life of the 
human soul makes it possible that the heavenly attraction 
should prevail over it, while yet it feels the drawing of the 
things of sense, and is in more or less danger of conceding 
too much to that inferior drawing. Thus, as a rule, the re- 
born man needs training and perfecting. From the good be- 
ginning that has been made in regeneration he needs to ad- 
vance to the goal of complete sanctification. 

To define accurately the scope of entire sanctification is not 
altogether easy. Evidently the term cannot exclude every 
limitation induced by sin, else it will be made the name of 
an impossible experience, since no recovered sinner ts likely 
ever to reach quite the same spiritual stature which he would 
have gained through perfect obedience to God. On the other 
hand, it evidently falls short of the natural significance of the 
term to make it cover a less domain than comes under the 
category of responsible character. All abnormal proclivities 
in the emotive nature, which have been caused by personal 
misconduct, have a cast of sinfulness as being blameworthy 
tendencies to sin. Evidently entire sanctification should ex- 
tend to the cure of personal sinfulness, and so must correct 
these tendencies. This is the least that can be claimed; and 
it seems not inappropriate to include under the term the heal- 
ing of all tendencies to evil that inhere in the soul and are 
not due simply to the pressure of an unfriendly environment. 





1 Daniel Fiske in Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1865. 


460 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


Theoretically it is doubtless conceivable that in regenera- 
tion all abnormal tendencies that partake of a moral character 
should be eliminated, so that further solicitations to sin would 
be limited to external sources. But the common experience of 
men teaches that, if there is such an event as regeneration, 
it prepares in general for an earnest and measurably victo- 
rious struggle with wrong tendencies rather than effects their 
complete extinction. Sin is indeed contrary to the relation 
into which one is brought by spiritual re-birth. It is alien 
to the filial character and standing. John even describes it 
as an impossible event,’ and Paul speaks of it as something 
to which the believer is to reckon himself entirely dead.’ 
The meaning is not that there is no liability to sin remaining, 
but that sin is radically contrary to the character and relation 
of the reborn man. In statements like these the New Testa- 
ment magnifies the office of regeneration. But alongside of 
them we may place a great body of instructions and exhorta- 
tions which imply that those who have believed to the saving 
of their souls need to watch with all diligence against falling, 
and to press on to further strength and sanctification.? 

The principal means which must be employed on the side 
of the individual in carrying forward his sanctification have 
already been noted in what was said of the human conditions 
of appropriating salvation. The fundamental means is faith, 
viewed especially as self-surrendering trust, a disposition or 
bearing that is born at once of God’s Spirit and man’s spirit, 
and which represents the union of grace and freedom. Second- 
ary means are repentance and evangelical obedience. 

It is quite customary to associate repentance rather with 
the preliminaries of positive Christian experience than to give 
it a place among the conditions of progressive sanctification. 
But it undoubtedly belongs among these conditions. There 
is indeed a much larger scope for repentance after regenera- 
tion than before. It is a distinguishing characteristic of the 





1; John iii.9. 2 Rom. vi. 2. 3 Heb. xii. 1-17 is a notable specimen. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 461 


regenerate person that he has within a ground of decisive re- 
action against sin. He may yield to temptation, but he can 
have no continued complacency in any forbidden indulgence. 
His deeply rooted conviction of the necessity of God’s favor 
and of the sanctity of the relation held to Him rebukes his 
trespass and puts him to shame. Next to the vitality of spirit 
which keeps out the trespass altogether is that which leads to 
instant and thorough repentance of the same. 

Now, no one is in the way of sanctification who does not 
preserve intact this ground of reaction against sin. No one 
can press toward the goal who does not take care of his re- 
pentance. And by taking care of repentance is not meant 
any scheme of external procedure with its liability to end ina 
mere shallow legality. The undertaking of a certain quantum 
of self-chosen inflictions, or the submission to certain kinds 
of ecclesiastical penances, may be little else than evading an 
obligation by making payment in bogus coin. Genuine repen- 
tance, to whatever outward amend it may inspire, is essentially 
an amend within the spirit itself. It springs from spiritual 
sensibility, from the frank recognition of personal ill-desert, 
from courageous and unflinching observation of the cleft be- 
tween the actual and the ideal in conduct and character. The 
first of these cannot be directly commanded; but the frank 
recognition of ill-desert and the intent gaze upon the stainless 
ideal which is set before us in Jesus Christ come very largely 
within the sphere of personal choice and endeavor. He who 
fulfills the part of duty and spiritual wisdom in relation to them 
may hope that the Divine Spirit will so fulfill His part that 
the ground of reaction against sin, implanted in regeneration, 
shall not only be kept intact but be strengthened and inten- 
sified. 

As respects evangelical obedience, it is worthy of notice 
that a thoroughly healthful result depends upon a union of 
the subjective with the more objective phases. There are 
gospel precepts which relate to interior acts, such as prayer, 


462 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


worship, spiritual contemplation and watchful care over mo- 
tives and dispositions. It will not do to neglect this order of 
precepts. The activity which slights them is likely to lack 
steadfastness, and is quite certain to be wanting in depth of 
spiritual animus. On the other hand, there are precepts which 
concern one’s relation to the kingdom of righteousness, or to 
the aggregate of men viewed as possible citizens of that king- 
dom. To slight these is to shut out the spiritual faculties 
from the great field of appropriate exercise. Growth in holi- 
ness is growth in unselfishness. Sacrifice for men helps to 
beget interest in men. Thus the heart is enlarged in its 
sympathies, and thought for others is on the way to becom- 
ing spontaneous and habitual. Neither engrossment in the 
demands of self-salvation nor mere bustling activity makes the 
path of true spiritual advancement. That path is found rather 
in the constant union of the interior with the exterior, of the 
exercises of piety toward God with those of self-expenditure 
toward men. As in the thought of Jesus, so in that of His 
disciple, the relation with God is to be treated as inseparable 
from the relation with the spiritual commonwealth. 

It seems to be an obvious truth that progress in sanctifica- 
tion means progress in the sense of direct personal relationship 
to the Lord and Redeemer of men, and that anything which 
dims this sense is an obstacle to that progress. Yet history 
shows that the truth in question has been far from claiming 
constant recognition. Instead of seeking salvation in com- 
panionship with a Divine Person, men have been made to 
depend upon ecclesiastical mechanism. The impersonal ex- 
pression “ grace” has taken the place of the personal expres- 
sion ‘Christ,’ or has been used apart from the thoroughly 
personal association in which it ought to stand. A reservoir 
of grace to which priestly custodians have the more direct 
access, and which may be made to yield supplies by various. 
expedients, has been with multitudes the dominant conception. 
This is the obstacle which overgrown sacerdotalism and ritual- 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 463 


ism put in the way of a vivid apprehension of direct personal 
relationship with the supreme object of faith. Evangelical re- 
ligion casts aside this obstacle; but its votaries need to be on 
guard against interposing one of their own. It is possible 
to fall out of the plane of reality by occupying the thought 
too much with abstract conceptions. Theology very properly 
analyzes the process of man’s spiritual recovery and points 
out the different factors which have place therein. But the 
problem of personal sanctification cannot be successfully 
wrought out by dwelling at length upon these factors. It is 
not a problem in a kind of spiritual alchemy, in which success 
is to be sought by an exact and skillful juxtaposition of ingre- 
dients, so much faith, consecration, and repentance being ap- 
portioned to one stage, and so much to another. Personal 
sanctification comes in and through personal communion with 
the ultimate objects of faith, love, and devotion. He who, in 
his measure, keeps the image of the Heavenly Father before 
his mind as it was before the mind of Christ, or the image of 
Christ before his mind as it was before the minds of Paul and 
John, and who thus brings the Personal Divine into his daily 
thought and activity, and lives and breathes in the atmosphere 
of divine love and righteousness, needs no subtle advice on 
the subject of sanctification; he is giving the Holy Spirit 
His coveted opportunity to make increasingly real and 
glorious to his apprehension the verities of the divine king- 
dom; he is travelling in the open way to the goal.  Pro- 
ceeding onward earnestly and obediently in that path, he 
' will surely find the sky overhead brightening, some day, 
with an unknown radiance. 

This is as much as saying that progressive sanctification is 
the same as progress in spiritual sonship, and that its con- 
ditions are essentially the same as the conditions of entrance 
into that sonship. In fact one is doing the best for his sanc. 
tification that is ever done, or can be done, when he continues 
with full earnestness and unswerving fidelity in the spiritual 


464 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


activities which entitled him, under the economy of grace, te 
be enrolled among God’s regenerate children. 


As the first decisive stage of sanctification is identical with 
regeneration, or the initiation of sonship, so complete sanctifi- 
cation signifies perfected sonship —_the state of one so truly a 
child of God as to have naught of the unfilial remaining in him- 
self. The goal of sanctification may also be fitly described by 
the terms which express the moral nature of God, namely, 
holy love. An equivalent description is conformity to Christ. 
In Johannine phrase it is sketched as the perfect love which 
casts out fear. 

Can this goal be reached in the present life? In other words, 
can a man advance here to a state which may be described 
negatively as free from sin, and positively as under the com- 
plete dominion of love —a state in which the moral disposition 
is pure and normal through and through, and conduct fails to 
be ideal in all respects only through unavoidable creaturely 
limitations? It must be granted that observation teaches us 
that the period of earthly discipline is in general all too short 
to consummate in this sense the work of sanctification. But, 
on the other hand, where is the warrant for assuming that 
such a consummation is strictly impossible? Philosophy cer- 
tainly does not afford it, that is,a philosophy that is consonant 
with Christian principles. It cannot be said that the body is 
an insuperable obstacle to entire sanctification, for Christian 
truth does not allow that there is any essential evil in matter. 
If there is, then, any insuperable obstacle, it must be in the 
spirit. The human spirit is indeed finite, fallible, and infirm; 
but not one of these qualites stands in necessary opposition 
to holiness. As for the sinful bias with which it is affected, 
who can say on grounds of reason that it is beyond remedy 
within the limits of earthly life? Great moral transforma- 
tions are wrought in very brief intervals of time. Who then 
is authorized to affirm that it is beyond the competency of 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 465 


God’s remedial agency to completely sanctify a soul before 
death ? 

A rational warrant for denying the possibility of entire sanc- 
tification in this life being thus wanting, the ground of denial 
must be found, if discovered at all, in revelation. It must be 
proved that the Scriptures teach that it is outside of the divine 
ability or the divine purpose to consummate the sanctification 
of any subject of grace before the article of death. Calvinists 
are hindered of course by their postulates from assuming that 
it is beyond the divine ability to do this; and non-Calvinists 
must needs despair of sustaining this assumption from the 
Scriptures, in the face of such words as those of Paul, which 
describe God as “able to do exceeding abundantly above all 
that we ask or think.”’! It remains then to deduce from the 
Scriptures that it is outside of the divine purpose, or no part 
of the divine economy, to bring any one to the point of entire 
sanctification in this life. But who has ever made a deduc- 
tion of this sort which has even the appearance of legitimacy ? 
Various passages show indeed that every man has unmistak- 
able occasion to include himself in the ranks of sinners when 
his life is taken as a whole. Not one of these, however, gives 
the faintest indication that its author meant to teach that in no 
case can sin be entirely put away before the separation of soul 
and body. Take, for example, this declaration of John, “ If 
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth 
is not in us.’’2 What an eccentricity of exegesis to suppose 
that this teaches a necessary continuance in sin, when the 
next verse reads, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all 
unrighteousness’; and when further on it is said, «« Whosoever 
is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in 
him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God.’’? 
Evidently what John meant to affirm in the first of these 





ne oe 





1 Eph. iii. 20. 21 John i. 8. * 1 John iii. 9. 


466 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


verses was simply the fact that the man who denies in general 
his need of God’s pardoning grace is guilty of untruth, and not 
that the grace of God is certain to leave in him some remains 
of sin so long as he is in the body. Again, take the clause in the 
Lord’s prayer which asks for the forgiveness of trespasses. This 
prayer, it is said, was designed for universal use, and therefore 
every man upon earth must, in point of character or conduct, 
or both, be in constant need of forgiveness. Some advocates 
of the possibility of entire sanctification have answered this 
objection by urging that, although a man may be completely 
healed of sin, so far as moral contamination is concerned, he 
still bears its effects in infirmities, or in lack of the spiritual 
and intellectual stature which continuous exercise in holiness 
would have given, and so has need to beseech forgiveness. 
But this is a very doubtful line of argument. Carried out 
rigorously it would involve the conclusion that the prayer for 
forgiveness will need to be repeated by every redeemed being 
to all eternity. So far as mere infirmities are concerned, such 
as liability to mistaken judgments, they never need to be for- 
given, except so far as they have been induced by personal 
transgression ; and, as a matter of fact, when the transgres- 
sion is forgiven they are no longer imputed. To say that 
such things need in themselves to be atoned for or forgiven is 
as much as to say that a man needs to apologize before God 
for the very creaturehood which God Himself has instituted in 
him. For aught we know, the glorified saints in heaven will 
make blunders; indeed, the essential limitations of creature- 
hood make it entirely probable that they will. No such resort 
as the plea under consideration is in the slightest degree neces- 
sary. While the Lord’s prayer is eminently appropriate to 
the state of men in general, no one can demonstrate that every 
clause in it was designed absolutely to fit every possible con- 
dition of every man in the world. Moreover, the fact of entire 
sanctification would not exclude the proper use of the prayer, 
unless that fact was indubitably certified to the consciousness 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 467 


of the sanctified person. Once more, the Lord’s prayer is, in 
form, a joint petition, and as such in every conceivable earthly 
relation can fitly be used, since it is intercession for others as 
well as supplication for personal needs. Other scriptural 
passages which are quoted on the side of denial need no de- 
tailed consideration. They are nothing more than general, 
and for the most part rhetorical, expressions of the unchal- 
lenged fact of the great proneness of men to sin.! 

On the other hand, the possibility of entire sanctification 
or perfect love is indicated by numerous passages: (1) by 
commands or exhortations in which all that it can properly 
be regarded as including is laid upon men as a matter of obli- 
gation ;* (2) by descriptions of Christian privilege or duty ;° 
(3) by prayers for Christian attainments. One or two quali- 
fying views, it is true, may be brought into conjunction with 
this aggregate of evidence. It has to be granted that the 
ultimate and unblemished ideal would probably have been 
held up to men, and progress toward it urged upon them, 
even though it were known to the mind of God that the rate 
of progress anywhere attainable in the world could not bring 
any one fully up to the ideal. To place the standard lower 
than the height to which man’s best intuition of moral obliga- 
tion can rise would be to present something less than the 
most effective spur to righteous endeavor. The publication 
of the perfect standard is justifiable, whether immediate attain- 
ment thereto is possible or not, since striving toward the stan- 
dard is immediately and always obligatory until it is reached. 
It has also to be granted that the Scriptures do not explicitly 
ascribe entire sanctification to any individual. Such terms as 
“perfect,” “righteous,” and “holy,” in their application to the 





11 Kings viii. 46; Eccl. vii. 20; James iii. 2. 

2 Matt. v. 48, xxii. 37; Mark xii. 30; Luke x. 27; 2 Cor. vil. 1; 1 Pet.i. 15, 16. 

8 Rom. vi. 6, 22; 1 Thess. iii. 13; Eph. iv. 13; 2 Pet.i. 4; 1 John i. 7, 9, 
ii. 5, iii. 3, iv. 18. 

4 Matt. vi. 10; Eph. iii. 14-21; 1 Thess. v. 23; Heb. xiii. 20, 21. 


468 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


men of the Bible may be supposed to be employed in a rela- 
tive sense, and to denote nothing more than eminent piety or 
a high degree of spiritual advancement. [Paul's representa- 
tion of his own experience, in Gal. i1. 20, is perhaps the nearest 
approach toa claim for the complete sanctification of a particu- 
lar individual that is to be found in the Bible; but there is 
small reason to suppose that Paul had any idea that he was 
making a claim for so high and precise an attainment as is de- 
noted by the current theological phrase. It is but fair to place 
these qualifying views alongside the scriptural evidence for 
entire sanctification. Nevertheless, it must be held that the 
force of that evidence is not fully cancelled by them. The 
New Testament gives no ground for supposing that there is 
such an absolute contrast between the conditions of the heav- 
enly life and those of Christian life in this world that sin 
must be entirely alien to the one and inevitable in the other. 
In the absence of sucha contrast, the commands, instructions, 
and prayers which look to entire sanctification or perfect love 
carry a certain presumption that the state which these terms 
define is of possible attainment in this life. It must be con- 
fessed, however, that it stands forth as an exceedingly high 
ideal. Any one who understands all that it implies will de- 
spair of its possibility, save as his heart is quickened by a large 
and intense faith in the marvellous power of divine grace. 


V.—- THE RELATION BETWEEN THE OBJECTIVE AND THE 
SUBJECTIVE ASPECT. 


What has been said may serve to show that the distinction 
between the objective and the subjective phase of salvation is 
not only well founded in the nature of the case, but has also 
the implicit sanction of the Scriptures. It would be a great 
mistake, however, to push this distinction into anything like a 
disjunction. As in the general provision of salvation we saw 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 469 


the objective and subjective united in perfect harmony, the 
economy of grace being so shaped as at once to pay tribute 
to divine righteousness and to influence men most effectively, 
so also in the individual application or appropriation of salva- 
tion we find the objective and the subjective intrinsically con- 
nected. The conditions of the one are the same as those of 
the other. The faith which brings justification opens the 
heart to the ministry of the regenerating Spirit, so that where 
objectively there is the standing of sonship there is subjec- 
tively more or less of the disposition of sonship. The same 
trustful and obedient life which is necessary to perfect the 
standing of sonship, or to bring men up from the plane of 
accepted sons to that of well-beloved sons, where they are 
fully the objects of the divine complacency, is likewise neces- 
sary to consummate the work of progressive sanctification. 
Thus the objective and the subjective, though distinguishable 
enough in thought, are inseparable in fact. So they were evi- 
dently viewed by the scriptural writers. As has already been 
observed, when Paul thought of a man’s being justified by faith 
he thought of one who by the same faith came into newness 
of life, and was made partaker of the Spirit which sheds abroad 
the love of God withinthe heart. And John was so far from 
conceiving a possible disjunction between the standing of son- 
ship before God and a sanctified life that he declares : “ Who- 
soever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him.” ! 
The antinomian theory is as unscriptural as it is unethical. 


VI. — THE CONSCIOUSNESS OR ASSURANCE OF SALVATION. 


The intrinsic connection between the subjective and the ob- 
jective phase of salvation involves the conclusion that personal 
appropriation is a matter of consciousness. There may be in- 





1 5 John iii. 6. 


470 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


deed no consciousness of a decisive spiritual crisis, as there 
may be in fact no such crisis. Nevertheless, since it is in 
God’s plan to regenerate the one whom He justifies, in other 
words, to make him a partaker of the character of a son when 
he introduces him into the filial standing, the one who is actu- 
ally saved has in the normal course of things a consciousness 
of salvation, a sense of spiritual affinity with God correspond- 
ing to his condition as a subject of spiritual rebirth. Various 
disturbing causes may affect this consciousness, so that it shall 
have very different degrees of clearness at different times ; but, 
so certainly as it is the vocation of the regenerated person to 
act as a son of God, it is only the normal fulfillment of his 
privilege to feel as a son, or to know that his heart goes 
out to God as to a reconciled Father. Reconciliation on its 
subjective side means the overcoming of the alien spirit in 
man. In proportion, therefore, as God seeks to reconcile 
men to Himself, He must seek in consistency to awaken in 
them the spirit of filial trust and confidence; it must be a 
leading aim with Him to bring them into a fellowship of in- 
dubitable mutual love. Assurance, in the sense of an inward 
conviction or subjective certainty of being graciously accepted 
of God and embraced in His love, is part and parcel of the 
New Testament conception of vital religion. To take it out 
would be to mutilate the fundamental notion of sonship, or 
rather to replace it with the counterfeit representation of a 
servile relation to God. 

Assurance may not be so of the essence of justifying faith 
that the absence of the one is proof positive of the lack of the 
other. Room must be allowed for eccentricities in feeling as 
well as in thinking. An abnormal direction of the latter may 
give more or less of wrong bias tothe former. Physical states 
may also tend to deflect the emotional experience from its 
proper plane. But to deny that the normal Christian conscious- 
ness contains the element of assurance, as defined above, is to 
go in the face of the most explicit teachings of the New Testa- 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 471 


ment. The ultra-sacerdotal notion that God keeps His children 
off at arm’s length, and leaves them for the most part toa human 
confidence in the validity of sacramental performances, which 
confidence, in the nature of the case, is something less than 
indubitable, finds no echo in the apostolic teaching. ‘“ Be- 
cause ye are sons,” says Paul, “God sent forth the Spirit of 
His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’”’! “Ye re- 
ceived not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye 
received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 
The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we 
are the children of God.”’? “In whom having believed, ye 
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an 
earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God’s own 
possession.” ® ‘On whom,” says Peter, «though now ye see 
Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeak- 
able and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even 
the salvation of your souls.”* Equally suggestive of a posi- 
tive realization of divine relationships are the words of Christ 
spoken in connection with His promise of the Comforter : 
“He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will 
love him, and will manifest myself unto him. . . . [If aman love 
me he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and 
we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” ® 

Some of the words just cited imply that at the basis of 
assurance there is a witnessing both of the Divine Spirit and 
man’s spirit. As much might also be concluded from the 
approved maxim of Christian philosophy respecting the union 
of the divine and the human generally in spiritual processes. 
The questions open to discussion concern the province of each 
factor and the relation of the one to the other. 

According to John Wesley’s interpretation, the witness of 
the Holy Spirit is immediate, — a conviction, wrought in some 


1 Gal. iv. 6. & Eph. i. 13, 14. 5 John xiv. 21, 23. 
2 Rom. viii. 16, 17 £1 Pet. i. 8, 9. 


472 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


inexplicable way, of the specific fact of acceptance with God. 
The witness of the human spirit, on the other hand, is the 
inward conviction or judgment that one possesses the fruits 
of the Spirit. ‘It is nearly, if not exactly, the same with the 
testimony of a good conscience towards God; and is the 
result of reason or reflection on what we feel in our own 
souls. Strictly speaking, it is a conclusion drawn partly from 
the Word of God and partly from our own experience.” + In 
the logical order, Wesley contends, the witness of the Holy 
Spirit stands first, since a knowledge of the love of God to 
us personally is a condition of that love in us which must 
characterize all holy emotions and acts. 

That there is truth in this analysis will not be disputed ; 
but a doubt may legitimately arise about its containing the 
whole truth. As respects the witness of the human spirit, 
Wesley seems to credit too much to a reflective process, and 
too little to the spontaneous conviction which issues, without 
any consciousness of argumentative procedure, from living 
spiritual affections. A man’s judgment, on reviewing himself, 
that he has the fruits of the Spirit, is indeed a witness of his 
own spirit that he is a child of God. But there is a swifter 
and intenser witness than this. The mother whose heart is 
actually bound up in her child does not need, in order to con- 
vince herself that she has parental love, to reflect upon an 
approved catalogue of the fruits of parental love. The out- 
going of her heart to her offspring is an immediate experience 
of parental love, an original knowledge which reflection may 
ratify, but to whose vivacity and certainty it can add little or 


1Serm. X., XI. We give the view of Wesley expressed in these sermons as 
being most representative of his way of thinking. It may be noticed, however, 
that he has made a passing reference to a conception of the method of assurance 
which is emphasized in our exposition of the subject. In his “Christian Per- 
fection” (p. 119), he wrote as follows : — 

Q. But does not sanctification shine by its own light? 

A. And does not the new birth too ? Sometimes it does ; and so does sancti- 
fication; at others it does not. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 473 


nothing. So spiritual motions and affections in the heart, 
—. the feeling of trust, the blended reverence and confidence, 
the joyful complacency which accompanies the thought of 
God, the thirst for divine fellowship, and the sense of that 
fellowship, — irradiate one’s relation to God before time is 
taken for any formal induction. 

The giving of due credit to this spontaneous element in 
the witnessing of man’s spirit is the more important as it 
helps us to construe the mode of the Holy Spirit in His 
contribution to assurance. Wesley’s description of the Holy 
Spirit’s agency, as consisting in the immediate production of 
a specific conviction, applies far better to a possible crisis or 
exceptional exigency in Christian experience than to assur- 
ance as a standing fact in a normal Christian life. It has 
become well-nigh a commonplace in theological thinking that 
in inspiration the Holy Spirit acts dynamically, carrying up 
the human powers to a higher plane of action instead of dis- 
carding or repressing them. But if this is the method of 
producing conviction or insight respecting the truths of the 
divine kingdom, analogy favors the conclusion that it is also 
the method of producing conviction as to the personal stand- 
ing of a believer before God. All that is needed for assurance 
ordinarily is the existence of vital spiritual affections. These 
shine with their own light. A truly filial disposition, by virtue 
of its nature, invokes God as Father. In stimulating, there- 
fore, to love and trust, the Holy Spirit contributes to assur- 
ance. By forming the character of a son, He puts the cry of 
a son into the heart. The argument that a knowledge of 
God’s love to the individual is the needed ground of his love 
to God must be taken with a qualification. A positive doubt 
of God’s love would indeed be a serious obstacle to loving 
Him. But a safeguard against such doubt is provided in the 
objective revelation through Christ, which solicits to self- 
surrendering faith. Any one who is on the verge of exer- 
cising that faith is already on the verge of a vital apprehension 


474 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


of God’s love to himself. Indeed, self-surrendering faith im- 
plies a measure of confidence in God's love; and an upspring- 
ing love toward God naturally evokes in its subject a spon- 
taneous inference as to God’s love to himself. For the Holy 
Spirit, then, to enkindle love, especially in one who is con- 
fronted by the objective revelation of God’s love in Christ, is to 
work effectively toward an inward persuasion of the love of God. 
It is to be noticed also that one cannot make much progress in 
the spiritual life before the provocative to love is found quite as 
much in the contemplation of God’s infinite loveliness — the 
unspeakable beauty and excellence of the holy love which 
constitutes his nature —- as in the mere thought of gracious 
acceptance with Him. 

While then we do not deny that, in accommodation to some 
special demand of the religious experience, the Holy Spirit may 
operate immediately for producing the conviction of accept- 
ance with God, we are persuaded that assurance as a stand- 
ing fact in the normal Christian life rests principally on the 
mediate agency of the Spirit—on His efficiency in forming 
the filial character and feeling, To sum up all in a sentence, 
assurance is in and through the filial consciousness, which con- 
sciousness is at once an activity of man’s spirit and a product 
of the Holy Spirit’s agency. 


A conviction of sonship toward God, however luminous it 
may be, does not of course involve complete self-knowledge. 
Since consciousness is not fully commensurate with being in 
man, the testimony of consciousness cannot render a pertectly 
complete account of a man’s spiritual condition. It may assure 
him that he is a child of God, but not that he is a perfected 
child. Only by revelation from an omniscient source can he 
know that there is no remnant of sinful tendency beneath 
consciousness, The fact of entire sanctification can be duly 
certified by nothing except this special revelation. No flow of 
spiritual affections, though reaching to ecstasy, can be taken 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION. 475 


as an undubitable evidence. To the known fact that the cur- 
rent of the religious life is strong there would need still to be 
added the proof that it is all-controlling, or bears on the whole 
moral personality. 

Is it a part of the divine economy to grant this special 
revelation? The Scriptures have not informed us that it is. 
While they teach that the Holy Spirit testifies to sonship, 
they do not teach that He testifies to perfection in sonship. 
Paul indeed speaks of an inner illumination which enables us 
to know the things which are freely given us of God.! But 
in the connection he is not discussing the possibility of perfect 
self-knowledge, but simply contrasting the sight, which the 
spiritual man has of the great treasures prepared by God, with 
the blindness of the natural man. It is giving an unwarrant- 
able exactness to his words to suppose that he had in mind a 
specific revelation by which a man’s spiritual state is disclosed 
to himself down to the last item of his personality. Such a 
means of an infallible judgment on himself Paul has indicated 
that he had no thought of claiming.” 

A scriptural warrant being thus wanting for the fact of the 
revelation in question, it must be approved, if at all, by the testi- 
mony of Christians. Doubtless some persons have supposed 
themselves to have received such a revelation; but it has to 
be acknowledged that the number is small compared to the 
total number of those who have made an impression of special 
saintliness in their lives; and also that very few of this small 
number have been persons of such carefulness and sobriety 
of judgment as to be above suspicion of having unconsciously 
inserted by interpretation an element that was not actually 
in their experience. We touch here, it is true, upon ground 
that is beyond the reach of decisive investigation. We will 
not dogmatize; but such means of judgment as are accessible 
to us incline us to think that any Christian who examines his 


Cor, ayi8: 952. Corvivs 4; 4. 


476 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


case with close discrimination will not wish to testify to his 
religious condition in any stronger terms than the following, 
used by one of the most edifying expositors of Christian per- 
fection on the anniversary of a remarkable experience: “A 
year ago I said that I did not know what was below the gaze 
of my consciousness. I still say the same, adding the testi- 
mony that the varied changes and perplexities through which 
I have since passed have failed to reveal any proof that Jesus 
is not king over the domain of my unconscious, as He is over 
my conscious, self.” ! This, it will be observed, is a testimony 
to a conscience void of offense toward God, but is not a claim 
to distinct assurance of entire sanctification. 

It might not be easy to prove that the actual possessor of 
entire sanctification would be damaged by the consciousness 
of its possession. Yet, on the other hand, something may be 
conceded to the widespread conviction that the most genuine 
saint is wont to be unaware of his sainthood. 


VII. — Tue Possisitity oF A Loss or SALVATION. 


One more inference remains to be drawn from the intimate 
relation which subsists between the objective and the subjec- 
tive phase of salvation. The regenerate character, it has been 
observed, while not excluding the possibility of sinning, is a 
ground of reaction against sin, insuring prompt repentance of 
transgression and a filial turning unto God. Now this fact 
must claim the divine recognition, and therefore affect the 
standing that is accorded in a given instance. The sin which 
does not push into indifference and hardness, which, in other 
words, does not cancel the filial character, in like manner does 
not obliterate the filial standing. It needs indeed to be for- 
given ; but in virtue of the filial character still remaining it is 


1 Daniel Steele, Love Enthroned, p. 292. 


PERSONAL APPROPRIATION OF SALVATION, 477 


certain to be sincerely repented of and to obtain forgiveness. 
The grace needed and extended is that of indulgence toward 
an offending and penitent son, not that of instatement in son- 
ship. So far then as justification is significant of entrance 
into a new filial relation toward God, it cannot be regarded as 
being done away by every sin, but only by sin which passes 
into the character, so that virtually there is the standing pur- 
pose of sin as well as the unpremeditated act, and the ground 
of repentance established in regeneration is annulled or made 
inoperative, 

As respects the possibility of a complete loss of the regener- 
ate character, or lapse into decisive apostasy, something may 
doubtless be said in favor of the negative. One who has known 
the joy of salvation and the dignity of divine relationships is in 
a manner disqualified for permanent satisfaction in the life of 
sin with its emptiness and meanness. He is likely therefore 
to experience an incentive to return from his prodigality. But, 
on the other hand, the range of possible caprice is very great, 
and the infatuation of sin is of incalculable force. Prolonged 
consent to the downward gravitation works toward an impos- 
sibility of a return to God, since it tends to paralysis of the 
spiritual powers. On the whole, rational considerations may 
be said to weigh rather for than against the possibility of 
final apostasy. 

The same is to be said of the scriptural evidence. Some 
sentences, it is true, in the parable of the good shepherd, not 
to dwell upon passages less capable of supporting the same in- 
ference,! may seem to imply an invincible safeguard against 
the ultimate lapse of any true disciple of Christ. But, it is 
an approved canon of interpretation that in parabolic teaching 
representations subsidiary to the main point are not to be over- 


1 Here belong Rom. viii. 38, 39, xi. 29; Phil. i. 6; 1 Pet. i. 5. Such general 
expressions of the persistency and fidelity with which God on His part works 
towards the final salvation of His children do not rule out the conditioning 
agency on man’s part which is so generally assumed in the Scriptures. 


478° THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


pressed. In the parable in question the disposition of the good 
shepherd, or his absolute fidelity to his own, is the main point. 
This is enforced by strong terms. One or another of these 
terms, taken by itself, may be construed as meaning that no 
member of Christ's flock shall be allowed to perish. But that 
is not the truth which it is the purpose of the parable to com- 
mend. Such statements are all subsidiary to the illustration 
of the perfect fidelity of the shepherd, which pledges that he 
will guard his sheep to the utmost. They may reasonably 
be taken as meaning that nothing shall be allowed to wrest a 
disciple from the hand of.Christ which divine vigilance and 
power can avert while duly respecting human freedom; not 
that personal caprice may not effect a fatal lapse. In the in- 
tense rhetorical representation a qualification is omitted which 
in a more prosaic rendering of the truth has to be supplied. 
For there are other passages in the New Testament which 
clearly enough indicate the possibility of falling away from 
the plane of discipleship and sonship. It is certainly very 
troublesome to draw any other inference from this language : 
« As touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of 
the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 
and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to 
come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again 
unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of 
God afresh and put Him to an open shame.”’! Almost as un- 
equivocal in its intimation of the possibility of apostasy is this 
sentence of Paul: “I therefore so run, as not uncertainly : so 
fight I as not beating the air: but I buffet my body, and 
bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have 
preached to others, I myself should be rejected.” ? 





1 Heb, vi. 4-6. Compare Heb. iii. 12, x. 26, 27; 2 Pet. ii. 20, 21; John xv. 6. 
21 Cor. ix. 26, 27. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 479 


CHAPTER II. 


CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ITS ASSOCIATED CHARACTER, OR 
THE CHURCH AND HER ORDINANCES. 


I. — THe NATURE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 


In treating of the part which the individual has in the 
appropriation of salvation before taking up the subject of the 
Church, we have followed the logical order. As men are the 
presupposition of the State, so Christians are the presupposi- 
tion of the Church. What the State is, or can be, is depen- 
dent upon the social and moral nature of the individual men 
by whose union it is constituted. Once established, the State 
may be a potent instrument in developing the social and moral 
nature, and in shaping its manifestations. That nature, how- 
ever, is never its gift, but rather the basis and guarantee of its 
own existence. Similarly the Church has its proper ground 
in the Christian character of men, that character which belongs 
to them as partakers of spiritual sonship through union with 
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church may be an effective in- 
strumentality in nurturing this character; but it has no sov- 
ereign prerogative in its production. It may educate and 
persuade; it cannot choose or believe for the individual. 
Only through his own personal response to divine grace can 
he possess the regenerate character and filial consciousness ; 
and only through the association of persons having such a char- 
acter can anything better than a counterfeit Church come into 
existence. Practically there is interdependence; but logically 
the person with his prerogative of self-determination stands 


480 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


tirst. Not until the Church has unconditional means of 
making men Christians in spirit and in truth can the religious 
personality become secondary to the organism in the order of 
thought. The individual may conceivably be united to Christ 
and alive in Him without any visible connection with the or- 
ganism. The organism, on the other hand, supposing it to have 
a formal existence, must remain perpetually abortive without 
a suitable direction of the will of the individual. 

This is a New Testament order of thought, being clearly 
reflected both in the Gospels and the Epistles. In the Gospels 
spiritual society is described as “ the Kingdom,” this term being 
used one hundred and twelve times, while the word “Church” 
is used in but two instances. In the Epistles a reverse usage 
prevails, “the Church” being mentioned one hundred and 
twelve times, and “the Kingdom”’ twenty-nine times. The 
two terms are not precisely equivalent. In the main a more 
concrete sense is associated with the later term than belongs 
with the primitive ; but when an ideal significance is given to the 
Church, as is the case in various New Testament passages, it 
becomes substantially identical with the kingdom. The latter 
describes the new humanity, that was to arise out of obedience 
to the gospel call, viewed especially in relation to its Divine 
Head. The former has more respect to the inter-relations of 
the members of this new humanity as constituting a spiritual 
brotherhood. In connection with the use of either term — and 
this is the pertinent consideration — it is to be noticed that 
the maximum stress is laid upon the personal character and 
activity of those contemplated. Christ has much to say about 
the spirit and conduct which must distinguish his disciples, the 
citizens of the new kingdom. By beatitude, parable, and pre- 
cept He shows abundantly how one can enter the kingdom, 
serve its interests, and reap its honors. But what about the 
institutions of the kingdom and its official administration? A 
few sentences sum up all of Christ’s recorded words on this 
subject, and these give general outlines rather than exact 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 481 


details, He seems to have been concerned chiefly to secure 
homage to spiritual maxims, to get the right spirit into the 
subjects of the kingdom, and to have assumed that this spirit 
would work itself out into suitable forms of administration. 
A similar ratio appears in the ministry of the apostles. An 
immense preponderance is given in their Epistles to the 
truths which directly concern personal salvation and its fruits 
in personal conduct. Matters of ecclesiastical régime are 
noticed very sparingly. Something is said of the religious 
disposition appropriate to different ranks of officers, but very 
little in formal description of their jurisdiction. As regards 
ceremonial, it can truthfully be affirmed that there is less of 
distinct prescription in the entire New Testament than in 
single chapters of the Old. In fact the individual stands forth 
as the unit of value. Far from being treated as the passive 
subject of an ecclesiastical mechanism, he is everywhere con- 
templated as a candidate for free acceptance of Christ, and 
for free association with those who bear His name. 

It is true, nevertheless, that the New Testament attaches a 
high importance to the Church. As descriptive of the religion 
of love it could not do otherwise. Love is intrinsically a 
social bond, a cement of brotherhood. The ideal toward 
which it works by virtue of its nature is that intimate union 
of men in which each is at once servant of all and served by 
all. In this sphere of mutual service the individual grows 
both by what he contributes and by what he receives. While 
the Church has no magical power to capture the throne of his 
moral personality, and to institute the Christian character in 
him, it does furnish him most valuable aids alike for the initia- 
tion and the nurture of Christian character. As a Christian 
he cannot prosper in the path of self-chosen isolation. Concen- 
tration on self wars against the love which is of the essence of 
Christian character. Union with Christ means union with 
the brethren of Christ. The perfection of this union was 
one of the things most earnestly besought by the burdened 


482 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


soul of Christ on the eve of His crucifixion ; and in the apos- 
tolic instructions it is strikingly emphasized by representing 
Christians as parts severally of a well-compacted building, or 
members of one living organism, to which the idea of disjunc- 
tion is thoroughly alien.! 

If we look beyond the needs of the individual, and consider 
the vocation of Christianity as a world-conquering power, we 
cannot stop short of a very high estimate of the importance 
and necessity of the Church. In the great task of bringing 
in the practical reign of Christ joint witness for the truth and 
joint effort against untruth and ungodliness are manifestly in- 
dispensable. y 

In its ideal character the Church may be described either 
as the body of Christ, or as the family of God. It is the body 
of Christ as confessing His headship, obeying His sovereignty, 
receiving and being animated by the Holy Spirit in fulfillment 
of His promise and gracious will. It is the family of God as 
being composed of those who by spiritual rebirth have been 
made children of God and joint-heirs with Christ. 

Since the ideal and the actual do not often coincide in this 
world, and their identity is quite out of question where an ag- 
eregate of earthly individuals is concerned, there is an obvious 
occasion to distinguish two aspects of the Church. Many who 
have been made recipients of ecclesiastical ordinances are no 
true subjects of Christ’s headship, no part of the Church asa 
Christ-filled body or as the spiritual household of God. On the 
other hand, some who have not received ecclesiastical ordin- 
ances are in the affinities of their spirits subjects of Christ 
and children of God. The former, though included in the 
visible organism, do not belong to the Church in its ideal char- 
acter; the latter, though outside of the visible organism, are 
included in the Church in its ideal character, and are certain 
to be disclosed ultimately as true members. 





1 John xvii. 20-24; Eph. ii. 19-22; 1 Pet. ii. §; Rom. xii. 4, §; 1 Cor. xii. 
12;. Eph. i, 22, 23, iv. 3-6; Col. i. 24. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 483 


It was in expression of these indubitable facts that the old 
Protestant distinction was asserted between the visible and 
the invisible Church. These terms are only a convenient 
means of expressing the truth that the actual and the ideal — 
the ecclesiastical area as it appears to the eyes of men, and 
the Church as it exists for God’s thought — are not commen- 
surate. Their use does not involve an assumption of two dis- 
tinct churches, but only of different boundaries of the Church 
according as it is seen from the human or the divine point of 
view, under the character of an outward organism, or under 
that of a genuinely spiritual society, a communion of God’s 
believing and regenerate children. Taken in this meaning, 
the terms find abundant justification in a common-sense view 
of the facts. They point, moreover, to a distinction which 
is by no means foreign to New Testament thought. When 
Christ speaks of the tares growing with the wheat till the 
time of harvest, and of many coming from the east and the 
west and sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the 
kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom are cast 
out, He gives clear expression to the idea which is embodied 
in the contrast between the visible and the invisible Church.! 
The same contrast is also implicit in Paul’s declaration that 
“they are not all Israel which are of Israel,’’? and likewise in 
John’s remark, “‘ They went out from us, but they were not 
of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued 
with us.’’? 

The conception of the invisible Church directs to the notion 
of the unity of the Church in its higher meaning. Those who 
are truly united to Christ, and possessed of the spirit of adop- 
tion, have the essential bond of union and communion with 
each other. They may not be actually in sympathetic fellow- 
ship on account of misunderstandings. But these belong to 
the surface of their relations. With the advance of light, such 


~ 


1 Matt. xiii. 24-30, viii. 10-12. 2 Rom. ix. 6. $1 John ii. 19. 


434 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


barriers will fall away, and the deep underlying bond of a 
common union with Christ will assert itself. Whether this 
unity in spirit shall be accompanied by outward ecclesiastical 
unity is of subordinate concern. Ecclesiastical unity is no 
guarantee of true spiritual unity. Christendom may conceiv- 
ably be more disunited under one ecclesiastical dominion than 
under a score. If it be claimed that outward divisions are 
more or less abnormal, it must be said on the other side that 
history teaches most impressive lessons about the danger of 
undivided power in human hands. Excess of dominion is 
likely to breed pride of rule and tyranny in the ecclesiastical 
as well as in the civil sphere. With all its divisions, Christen- 
dom is none too respectful of the rights of non-Christian 
nations. Ecclesiastically consolidated, it might be tempted 
to use such unspiritual means of religious conquest as have 
darkened past history. Doubtless its ecclesiastical divisions 
ought to be greatly reduced. But they are not to be deplored 
as an unmixed evil. In some part they ought to be conserved 
so long as any communion arrogates to itself sole ecclesias- 
tical validity or identity with the Church of God upon earth. 
A general surrender to this Pharisaic pretense would rob 
Christianity of its greatness as a spiritual kingdom, and sub- 
ject it to human measures of the more contracted sort. A 
claim to sole ecclesiastical legitimacy, in the face of such a 
record as lies back of the present, is the essence of sectarian- 
ism, and a sure token of apostasy from a spiritual conception 
of Christianity. 

This stress upon the inner bond of unity, as opposed to the 
necessary inclusion of all within a common outward organism, 
is quite in accord with the fact that there is no authoritative 
prescription in the New Testament of a particular form of 
church government. This fact is, indeed, denied, but it rests 
upon adequate grounds. The apostles evidently were not in- 
trusted with any ready-made scheme, for polity was a matter 
of growth under their administration, new features being sup- 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES, 485 


plied as occasion arose. At an early date the office of deacon 
was instituted, at least in germ. At a later and unknown 
point elders were constituted a governing board in each local 
church. As the apostles did not receive a ready-made scheme, 
so they did not deliver a fixed polity to the Church. At least, 
no word in the New Testament can be cited in proof that 
they did; and post-apostolic history shows that features which 
are unmentioned in the New Testament, such as the episco- 
pate proper, began to acquire currency in some quarters in 
the early part of the second century. Now, a progressive 
polity like that cannot be taken as an authoritative model. If 
one seizes it at a particular point and says, Up to this stage it 
is authoritative, he can at once be met with the inquiry, How 
do you know that it is not left to the practical wisdom of the 
Church to bring in new adjustments and modifications to 
meet new conditions? Apostolic discretion accommodated 
itself to new exigencies. Who knows that the exigencies 
coming properly into consideration were all met by Christian 
society in the Graeco-Roman world within the narrow limits 
of the apostolic era? Nobody not favored with supernatural 
insight can know any such thing, and thus obtain a shadow of 
warrant for saying that Christians are bound for all time to 
find in the unfolding polity of the primitive Church at this or 
that point an authoritative model. Add to this the obvious 
truth, that no church organization on earth to-day corresponds 
to the apostolic pattern. So conspicuous a feature as the 
apostolate is nowhere reproduced. A few little adventurous 
sects have indeed brought out their parody; but so general 
has been the conviction of Christians that the apostolate was 
a unique provision for the foundation era of the Church, that 
no attempt has been made by the vast majority to conserve 
anything like a copy of the original college of apostles. Thus 
every communion which proclaims the exclusive validity of 
the apostolic polity assails in greater or less measure its own 


ecclesiastical legitimacy. 
32 


486 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


While no precise scheme of polity is enforced by apostolic 
precedent, it by no means follows that important lessons, valid 
for all time, are not furnished by the spirit and tenor of the 
apostolic administration. Variation in governmental appliances 
does not necessarily imply variation in the spirit of govern- 
ment or in the underlying conception of citizenship. On the 
proper spirit of ecclesiastical government and the nature of 
Christian citizenship, the apostles certainly teach lessons which 
ought never to be discarded. Their exceptional position makes 
these lessons all the more binding. If the men who were in- 
trusted with the founding of the Church, and who delivered 
to it its written oracles, respected the will of the congregation, 
saw in special offices means of special service rather than of 
lordship, and addressed the whole company of believers as if 
they stood on essentially the same plane of Christian citizen- 
ship, then it is evident enough that the aristocratic and sacer- 
dotal scheme, with its broad distinction between a governing 
rank and passive subjects, is in the line of usurpation. No 
followers of the apostles can possibly be entitled to an auto- 
cratic rule which they neither allowed nor exercised. Now, as 
a matter of fact, the apostles honored the will of the congre- 
gation, and intruded no broad chasm between the official and 
non-official portion of the Church. The congregation took 
part even in such a matter as the filling of a vacancy in the 
apostolic college! The appointment of the original board of 
deacons was by the free choice of the assembly.?__ In relation 
to the first council of which we have record, mention is made 
of “the whole Church as being associated with the apostles and 
elders,” ? and the decree of the council was addressed simply 
to the “brethren which are of the Gentiles.’ Liberty to par- 
ticipate in the worship and teaching seems to have been 
limited only by the gifts of individual members and the 
demands of good order.* Matters of discipline were not 


1 Acts i. 15-26, =? Acts vi. 1-6. 8 Acts xv. 22. 41 Cor. xiv, 23-33. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 487 


counted foreign to the congregation ; at least, we find Paul in 
relation to a special case addressing the whole Corinthian 
church rather than a select body of officers.! Practices like 
these have all the force of precepts on the proper spirit of 
Christian administration. And precepts, too, are not wanting. 
Thus Peter instructs the elders that they are not to lord it 
over their charge, but make themselves ensamples to the flock.” 
The same apostle gives a phrase which may be regarded as the 
condensed charter of Christian liberty, when he addresses 
Christians generally as a “holy priesthood,” ordained “to 
offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus 
Christ’? To make all Christians priests is equivalent to 
abrogating the notion of a proper sacerdotal rank, or a neces- 
sary official medium between God and the mass of worshippers. 
No such rank is recognized in the New Testament account of 
Christian society. Not a solitary instance occurs in which a 
Christian minister is styled a priest (iepe’s) in his official 
capacity. As Fairbairn remarks, “ The studious avoidance of 
the name by men who were steeped in the associations of sacer- 
dotal worship is most significant.” 4 

A supplementary view needs to go with that just presented. 
The universal priesthood of believers, or their inherent citizen- 
ship in relation to the Christian republic, does not remove the 
obligation to respect and to obey constituted authority, where- 
ever obedience is consistent with a good conscience toward 
God. If the apostolic model binds officials not to lord it over 
the flock, it binds the flock to treat respectfully those who are 
over them in the Lord, “and to esteem them exceeding highly 
in love for their work’s sake.” ° To disturb brotherly harmony, 
and to endanger schism over mere matters of personal prefer- 
ence, is not so much to assert a proper right of Christian 
citizenship as to indulge in antichristian egoism. 





11 Cor. v.; 2 Cor. ii. 5-11. Sin Pet. vi 3, Sip Pet vik: |e: 
4 The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 533. S Thess. v. 12, F3. 


488 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


II. — CRITICISM OF THE ULTRA—SACERDOTAL CONCEPTION 
OF THE CHURCH. 


The conception of the Church, as outlined above, collides 
with the monarchical theory of the Roman Catholic Church, 
and also with the aristocratic theory held by the Greek Church 
and by the High Church wing of the Anglican communion. 

The Roman Catholic theory finds its culminating expression 
in the dogmas of papal supremacy and papal infallibility.1 The 
former, as authoritatively promulgated by the Vatican Council 
of 1869—70, assigns to the pope the most unqualified lord- 
ship over the Church which can be conceived to be vested in 
a human being. Language affords no terms more expressive 
of absolute rule than those contained in the following canon : 
“Tf any shall say that the Roman pontiff has the office merely 
of inspection or direction, and not full and supreme power of 
jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which 
belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to 
the discipline and government of the Church spread through- 
out the world; or assert that he possesses merely the principal 
part, and not all the fullness of this supreme power; or that 
this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate, 
both over each and all the churches, and over each and all the 
pastors and the faithful: let him be anathema.” ? 

In a brief consideration of the merits of this tremendous 
assumption, the emphasis falls particularly upon three 
points : — 

1. A dogma of such vast import as that of papal supremacy 
ought to be a most certain and distinct part of revelation. 
There is nothing with which it can be compared for reach of 
practical significance except the existence of God and the fact 
of a redemptive economy. As was expressly defined by 





1 Some of the paragraphs on these themes are substantially a reproduction 
of matter given to print by us several years ago in a religious periodical. 
2 Fourth Session, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chap. IIL. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 489 


Boniface VIII, in the bull Unam Sanctam, the dogma of 
papal supremacy implies that subjection to the pope is indis- 
pensable to salvation. It leads also to the conclusion that the 
biblical revelation has no right of direct impact upon human 
minds; that in truth for all, except the pope, it is no sun in 
the spiritual firmament, but a mere moon, having permission 
to shine upon the world at large only as it is reflected from 
the understanding of the vicegerent in the Vatican, who is 
alike the arbiter of faith and of conduct. Surely a dogma thus 
vitally related to salvation, and fundamentally determinative of 
the function of the biblical revelation, ought not to be ignored 
or left in the mist by that revelation. 

2. The dogma of papal supremacy is not taught either clearly 
or obscurely in the Scriptures. Indeed, so far is the New 
Testament from assigning any peculiar prerogatives to the 
Bishop of Rome, that it does not even mention that official. 
It may be granted that Christ spoke of Peter as a foundation, 
and also as a bearer of the keys.! But when it is seen that 
Christ spoke in like manner of the other apostles as bearers of 
the keys;? that all the apostles are placed together in the 
foundation ;? that the Book of Acts furnishes not one trace of 
constitutional supremacy in Peter; that the Epistles of Paul 
reveal him as claiming full equality in the grace of apostleship, 
and even assuming to correct Peter on a certain occasion,* 
what more can we reasonably make of the mention of Peter as 
a foundation than a simple declaration that he should take an 
eminent part in founding the Church? Peter was a founda- 
tion as doing the work of afounder. The other apostles were 
a foundation in the same sense; John in a measure scarcely 
inferior to that of Peter; Paul, in even a larger measure, by 
reason of his “more abundant labors” in the Gentile world. 
The special mention of Peter at a particular juncture is ade- 


1 Matt. xvi. 18, 19. 8 Eph. ii. 20. 
2 Matt. xviii. 18. * Gal. i. 1, 11-17, ii. 6-15. 


490 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


quately explained by the special occasion for rewarding him 
which he had just given by his noble confession. The glorious 
place which some of the other apostles were to have in the 
foundation was left to the disclosure of subsequent history. 
In the case of all alike, the idea of proper successors to their 
place in the foundation is rationally excluded. To predicate 
strict succession here would be like assuming a continous suc- 
cession of founders of the American Republic. 

If the New Testament assigns no constitutional supremacy 
to Peter, still further is it from bestowing that supremacy on 
the Bishop of Rome; for the New Testament makes not the 
slightest association between the apostle and the Roman 
bishop. The way in which Romish exegesis foists the latter 
into the place of the former is arbitrary to the last degree. 
It rivals the violence of Gnostic interpretation to make Peter 
figure for the Bishop of Rome on certain select occasions 
when words of honorable import were addressed to him. Why 
exclude a representative force from certain other words which 
have a different import? Christ said to Peter: “Get thee be- 
hind me Satan ;”’ also, “ Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny 
me thrice.” Is it to be concluded from these sayings that 
each Roman bishop must be an incarnation of Satan, and 
sometime between supper and breakfast must deny Christ 
three times? Scarcely more arbitrary is it to draw this in- 
ference than to build a papal theory on the more complimen- 
tary sentences. 

3. History establishes by overwhelming evidence that papal 
supremacy, so far as realized in theory and fact, was attained 
through a long-continued accretion of assumption and power. 

Newman has observed that “ Christianity developed in the 
form, first, of a Catholic, then of a papal, Church.” In thus 
writing he may have been a very bad Romanist, but he showed 
himself at this point to be a respectable historian. The papal 
type was truly foreign to the first stage of Christianity. 
Doubtless a keen eye might early have detected a shadow of 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 491 


the coming transformation. Imperial Rome was a towering 
and majestic form in the ancient world. Even Christians, who 
were supposed to cast their gaze beyond earthly grandeur, felt 
a certain awe before the proud mistress of the world. This 
appears distinctly in Tertullian, who conceived of Roman 
dominion as co-extensive with the temporal order of things, 
so that when Rome should fall the world would come to an 
end! Evidently this feeling was fitted to lend more or less of 
aid to the dignity of the Roman bishop. If in the fourth 
century the imperial associations of the newly-founded capital 
of the east speedily lifted its bishop above all eastern rivals, 
making Constantinople to take precedence in episcopal rank 
of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, the grander associa- 
tions of Rome could hardly fail to do still more for its bishop. 

The evolution of the papacy is adequately explained. The 
institution came by no sudden bound into the world, but by a 
slower process than that which transformed French feudalism 
into the autocratic rule of Louis XIV. Even by the sixth 
century the evolution was only partially accomplished. The 
whole history of the councils in the fourth, fifth, and sixth 
centuries reveals, at most, an aristocratic, not a monarchical 
type of church government. The insignificant part fulfilled 
by the Roman bishop in calling these great assemblies, in pre- 
siding over them, and in confirming their decisions, makes the 
supposition that the Church of that era attached monarchical 
authority to him, in anything like the sense of the Vatican 
decree, grossly far-fetched and unhistoric. Broad facts like 
these weigh vastly more than any flattering tributes which in- 
terested individuals, seeking the aid of a powerful ally, amid 
the sharp contentions of the time, may have rendered. 

If we go back to the first three centuries we find no indi- 
cation that any further dignity was accorded to the Roman 
bishop than would inevitably fall to the episcopal head in a 


1 Apologeticus, xxxii. 


492 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


great apostolic seat and centre of earthly dominion ; that is, a 
certain primacy in honor and actual influence. Two or three 
sentences are indeed on record, which, when wrenched out of 
their connection, may be made to render a sort of testimony 
in favor of the Romish theory. Thus Tertullian referred to 
the Roman bishop as “ Pontifex Maximus.” But he applied 
the pagan title in manifest irony, connecting it with a decree 
which he said could not be posted with propriety except ‘on 
the very gates of the sensual appetites.”’! Irenzeus is thought 
to have spoken of the necessity of agreeing with the Roman 
church. But in the connection he was thinking of Rome, 
not as a centre of ecclesiastical authority, but as a depository 
of tradition, which, as being received from the illustrious 
apostles Peter and Paul, and handed down through an un- 
broken succession of bishops or presbyters, he believed to be 
incorrupt.2 His thought was identical with that of Tertul- 
lian, who said that the capricious exegesis of heretics must be 
met by an appeal to the churches of apostolic origin, Chris- 
tians in the East appealing to Smyrna, Corinth, Philippi, and 
Ephesus, while Christians in Italy could most conveniently 
appeal to Rome.* Irenzus, writing in the West, naturally 
fixed upon the only apostolic seat in that section of the 
empire. As his own words plainly show he mentioned Rome 
simply as an eminent example of a class. His conduct, 


1 De Pudicitia, i. 

* Cont, Harri. 3.02. 

3 De Praescript, Haer. xxxil., xxxvi. 

4 The comments passed on the reference of Irenzus to the position of the 
Roman church are based on a not uncommon understanding of his words. 
If, with William Bright, we suppose zecesse est to denote simple necessity, 
instead of obligation, and convenire ad to mean to come together to, rather 
than to agree with, then obviously any tribute to the Roman church which is 
contained in the words of Irenzus is very much retrenched. The conclusion, 
in that case, would be that he represents Rome as being not so much the 
source of orthodoxy as a reservoir of the same, on account of an ingathering 
of Christians from all parts of the Church (The Roman See in the Early 
Church, pp. 31-36). 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 493 


moreover, supplies a comment on his meaning, since he boldly 
opposed the intolerant course of the Roman bishop, Victor, in 
the Easter controversy, and advised the churches contrary to 
his policy.!. Cyprian, in one instance, associated the notion 
of sacerdotal unity with Peter and Rome.? But nothing is 
clearer than that he thought of them rather as means of sym- 
bolizing that unity than as having any monopoly of sacerdotal 
prerogatives. He expressed his theory of church government 
in these significant words: “The episcopate is one, each part 
of which is held by each one for the whole.’® Still further, 
in open opposition to the attempt of the Roman bishop, 
Stephen, to press his own views on the subject of re-baptism, 
he declared: ‘Every bishop, according to the allowance of 
his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, 
and can no more be judged by another than he himself can 
judge another.” 4 

So the most noted tributes to the Roman bishop in the first 
three centuries are found on examination to be no expression 
of the specific papal theory. It required centuries of indus- 
trious aggression and assertion, aided by great forgeries, to 
enthrone that theory even within the limits of Latin Christen- 
dom. 


In connection with the long current assumption in Roman 
Catholic circles respecting the infallibility of the Church, the 
doctrine of the unqualified supremacy of the pope, as formu- 
lated in the canon which was cited, involves by necessary in- 
ference his dogmatic infallibility. The Vatican decree on 
this subject, therefore, only gave explicit statement to an im- 
plication of the declaration on administrative supremacy. The 
decree reads as follows: ‘We teach and define that it is a 
dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman pontiff when he 


a SER 


1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 24. 8 De Unitate Eccl. 
2 Fpist. liv., ad Cornelium, 4 Third Council of Carthage, A.D. 256. 


494 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of 
pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme 
apostolical authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith and 
morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine as- 
sistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that 
infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his 
Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding 
faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the 
Roman pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from 
the consent of the Church. But if any one—which may 
God avert-—— presume to contradict this our definition: let 
him be anathema.” 

The field of infallibility, as thus defined, is evidently a very 
broad one. Almost any important matter involves a point of 
faith or morals, and is therefore a possible subject for an in- 
fallible decision. The requisition that the decision should be 
given in an ex cathedra manner is more of a limitation; but 
even this is not a very definite restriction. For, while the 
language of the decree implies that an er cathedra decision is 
one directed, in the papal intention, to the whole Church, it does 
not say that it must be formally so directed. A decision may 
be implicitly for the whole Church which is not explicitly 
addressed to all the faithful. That a decision of the former 
kind may be ex cathedra has never been authoritatively de- 
nied; and there is slight danger, also, that a denial of this 
sort will ever appear, since it would abridge rather inconveni- 
ently the force of this and that papal utterance. In fact, 
various infallibilists have taught that a formal address to the 
whole Church is not a necessary characteristic of an er cathe- 
dra document. 

In estimating the merits of the dogma it is legitimate to 
array against its credibility every Roman Catholic tenet which 
is discordant with reason or revelation, since every one of 
these has received the papal sanction. But, foregoing this 
means of criticism, we will note the following considerations : 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 495 


1. The fact that enormous frauds paved the way to the 
declaration of papal infallibility, if not a proper disproof of 
the dogma, certainly invites to a suspicious attitude towards 
its claims. As to the fact stated, the evidence is of compel- 
ling force. A candid historian cannot deny that a strain of 
increased papal assumption was filtered into the literature of 
the Church from the pseudo-Isidore decretals which were 
cor.cocted in the ninth century. No more can he deny that 
the forgery of the thirteenth century which deceived Thomas 
Aquinas — leading him to quote in favor of papal infallibility 
sentences that the fathers, to whom they were attributed, had 
never written — had a great effect upon theological opinion 
in the following centuries. Let it be granted that the Ultra- 
montane party, as represented in the Vatican Council, did not 
openly defend these fictions ; it is still true that a majority of 
the party had been greatly influenced by them. Not only 
had their thoughts been shaped by inferences drawn from the 
forgeries, but portions of the very forgeries themselves had 
been served up to them in works which entered fundamentally 
into the education of the priesthood, especially in the Latin 
nations. Liguori, for example, a writer held in extraordinary 
repute, repeats no inconsiderable portion of the hoary false- 
hoods.!. In short Dollinger was guilty of no presumption 
when he offered to prove that the bishops of the Romance 
countries — Italy, Spain, South America, and France — had 
been very largely misled by fabricated and garbled proofs.” 

2. Only by the most extravagant and arbitrary interpreta- 
tion can any warrant be found in the Scriptures for papal infalli- 
bility. The Vatican decree cites three passages: Matt. xvi. 18, 
Luke xxii. 32, John xxi. 15-17. Did ever feat of interpreter 
compare with this? A declaration that Peter should fulfill an 
honorable part in the founding of the Church, a prayer that 


1 Déllinger und Reusch, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der r6misch- 
katholischen Kirche seit dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert, I. 403-412. 
2 Letter to Archbishop von Scherr, March 28, 1871. 


496 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


the apostle, worsted by temptation, might not fall into a fatal 
apostasy from his Master, a threefold exhortation to pastoral 
fidelity, which probably reminded Peter of his threefold de- 
nial, — these items prove the Roman bishop infallible, though 
none of them proves as much for Peter himself, and one of 
them might as well be cited in proof of a needed conversion 
of the pope as in support of his infallibility! Surely the 
fathers may be pardoned for not having discovered papal in- 
fallibility in these passages. As Dollinger contends, none of 
them applied the passages in the Vatican sense. It is true 
that Pope Agatho in 680 cited the verse in Luke; but his 
own words, as well as the conditions of the case, make it far 
more credible that he meant to claim indefectibility in the 
sense of Bossuet than infallibility in the sense of the Vatican 
decree. Bossuet, while denying strict infallibility, believed 
that the Roman see could not be persistently given to error. 
3. The dogma of papal infallibility is contradicted by broad 
ranges of historical facts. Whatever may have been the scope 
of the oversight exercised by the Roman bishop within the 
limits of his own patriarchate, the record of the early Church 
as a whole shows that it had no idea that doctrinal disputes 
could be settled by the short method of appealing to him. 
They were fought out on the arena of debate until carried 
before an ecumenical council. To be sure, we are reminded 
in high-sounding phrase that the great Council of Chalcedon 
exclaimed over the letter of Leo the Great: ‘Peter has 
spoken through Leo!’ But the exclamation is of small 
consequence. Words every whit as complimentary were 
uttered in the same breath respecting Cyril of Alexandria, 
and Leo’s letter was approved simply because its teaching 
was agreeable to a majority of the assembly.! No less 
garbled is the alleged declaration of Augustine: “Rome has 
spoken ; the cause is ended.” Augustine joined the sentence 


1 Mansi, vi. 971. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 497 


of two councils with that of the Roman bishop. Moreover, 
he did not hesitate, together with the North African clergy, 
to correct the Roman bishop, Zosimus, in his dealing with the 
Pelagians. He also excused Cyprian’s position respecting re- 
baptism, on the ground that the Church in his age had not 
rendered an authoritative decision on that subject ;2 which is 
just the same as saying that the voice of the Roman bishop 
was not authoritative, that dignitary having already given his 
decision in very plain terms. 

Another broad range of facts, equally adverse to papal in- 
fallibility, is the chain of anathemas fulminated against Hono- 
rius I as a teacher and patron of heresy. Three ecumenical 
councils —the sixth, seventh, and eighth — concurred in the 
anathema. Pope Leo II solemnly approved it, and after him 
it was subscribed to by the popes for no less than three cen- 
turies. It is not necessary to inquire into the exact nature of 
the trespass of Honorius. The Church which, for centuries, 
condemned him on charge of heresy, without once taking care 
to utter in connection with its anathemas a saving clause for 
papal infallibility, could not have cherished the notion of infal- 
libility in the Vatican sense. The doctrine, therefore, lacks 
the mark of valid tradition. 

A third range of facts is supplied by the moral record of 
the popes. No well-informed person will deny that worldly- 
minded and depraved men have sometimes gained the papal 
office. No thoughtful person will deny that the almost bound- 
less adulation, which is awarded to the incumbent of the high 
office, is itself likely to be a source of powerful temptations, 
against which even the best have no perfect safeguard. To 
make infallibility, therefore, an attachment of the papal office 
is to divorce it from all necessary connection with personal 
sanctity ; and this is equivalent to affirming a magic which is 
unworthy of a place in any spiritual creed. 





1 Serm. cxxxi. 2 De Bapt. cont. Donat. Lib. ii. n. 5. 


498 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION 


A kindred range of facts is found in the part which the 
-popes have taken in the long tragedy of religious persecution. 
Scores of them were implicated in the work of organizing and 
supporting the Inquisition. Leo X, in an ex cathedra docu- 
ment, condemned Luther’s affirmation that the burning of 
heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit. The most 
recent popes haye denounced the principle of religious toler- 
ance. Even Leo XIII, by quoting as authority the encyclical 
of Gregory XVI, issued in 1832, and the Syllabus of Errors, 
published by Pius LX, as well as by utterances of his own, has 
indicated that a Roman Catholic power commits a grievous 
sin when it tolerates any form of dissenting worship, except 
under the pressure of practical necessity.1 Religious toler- 
ance, as it exists to-day, has been introduced in the face of 
papal precepts and prohibitions, and either it must be wrong 
in principle, or the popes are not the appointed guides of 
the race. 

4. The dogma of papal infallibility is contradicted by many 
specific facts. The following is to be regarded as only a 
partial enumeration: (1) Liberius, as we are assured by 
Athanasius and Jerome, subscribed to a Semi-Arian creed. 
(2) Vigilius vacillated in a most disreputable way between 
opposition and consent in his attitude toward the dogmatic 
schemes of Justinian. (3) Gelasius I used language which 
distinctly implies that the substance of bread and wine is not 
changed or eliminated by consecration. (4) Honorius | 
taught the Monothelite heresy in epistles which were im- 
plicitly addressed to the whole Church, and which Hefele, 
one of the most competent of recent Roman Catholic his- 
torians, declares to have been given ex cathedra. (5) Inno- 
cent III denied the immaculate conception of the Virgin, 





1 Epist. Encyc. de Civitatum Constitutione Cristiana, Nov. 1, 1885; Epist. 
ad Card. Vicarium Monaco la Valetta, June 26, 1878; Litterae Encyc. ad 
Episcopos Italiae, Feb. 15, 1882; Epist., July 19, 1889 (to the Emperor of 
Brazil). 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 499 


whereas Pius IX made itadogma. (6) The Council of Con- 
stance declared the pope to be, both in matters of faith and 
administration, an authority secondary to the council. Martin 
V expressed his assent to the decisions of this council con- 
summated in regular sessions, and also issued a formal require- 
ment for an acknowledgment of the ecumenical character of 
the assembly. To these decisions, so far as they bear upon 
the papal office, those of the Vatican Council are diametrically 
opposed. So pope and council at Constance contradict pope 
and council at Rome. (7) Eugenius IV, in an elaborate de- 
cree addressed to the Armenians, gave as essential to the 
sacrament of penance a formula which the Greek Church 
never used, and which the Latin Church itself did not employ 
for eleven centuries. He also defined some of the other sac- 
raments of the Roman list in a way which assailed their 
validity as they had been practiced in the earlier ages. 
(8) Adrian VI, in a work republished after his election to the 
papacy, declared it certain that the Roman pontiff could fall 
into and decree error in matters of faith. (9g) Paul V, Urban 
VIII, and Alexander VII took a responsible part in the con- 
demnation of the Copernican theory as contrary to Scripture 
and savoring of heresy. (10) Clement XI, in the bull Uyz- 
genitus, reprobated sentences which may reasonably be con- 
sidered the equivalents of New Testament statements, and 
assailed one of the plainest dictates of common morality by 
condemning the assertion that “the fear of an unjust excom- 
munication ought never to hinder us from doing our duty.” 

In respect to some of these instances there may be a chance 
to take refuge in technicality. But technicality is a shabby 
and artificial refuge. To refine on the precise way in which 
the pope must speak, in order to deliver himself infallibly, is 
to discredit the notion of his infallibility in the sight of clear 
practical intelligence. If we are not required to believe him 
when he faces to the west, there is minor occasion for repos- 
ing entire confidence in him when he faces to the east. 


500 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


In the aristocratic theory of the Orthodox Greek Church, 
and of the High Church party in the Anglican establishment, 
the stress is upon the episcopal office, viewed as held in con- 
tinuous succession from the apostles. Only that ecclesiastical 
organization, it is contended, which has bishops, standing in 
the unbroken line of descent from the apostles as respects 
their ordination, is any part of the true Church. In objec- 
tion to this theory it is to be remarked : — 

1. If episcopacy, in the sense defined, is so necessary, that 
the company of professing Christians which lacks it is with- 
out all proper church institutions and sacraments, we should 
expect to find it clearly prescribed in the New Testament. 
But such is not the case. Episcopacy of the Anglican or 
Greek type is not even brought to view in the New Testa- 
ment writings, much less set forth as a perpetual requirement. 
The only bishops who figure there are officers of local 
churches ; and as such they are mentioned in the plural, and 
in various connections are apparently identified with elders or 
presbyters.! It is barely possible that before the death of the 
Apostle John, a distinction began to be made within the board 
of presbyters by the impartation of increased dignity and pre- 
rogative to the president of the board. But the New Testa- 
ment makes no mention even of such an incipient episcopate ; 
and, if it be supposed to have arisen before the close of the 
first century, it still remains true that no one is in condition 
to prove that apostolic authority, as distinct from a natural 
evolution, brought it about. Bishop Lightfoot expresses the 
most that can be claimed, on the warrant of known facts, for 
the connection of episcopacy with the apostolic era, when 
he says: “It is clear that at the close of the apostolic age, 
the two lower orders of the threefold ministry were firmly 
and widely established; but traces of the third and highest 








t Acts xx. 17, 28; Titus i. 5-9. Compare Phil. i. 1; 1 Tim. ili. 1-9; 1 Pet. 
Vv - PAS 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES 50! 


order, the episcopal, properly so-called, are few and indistinct. 
For the opinion hazarded by Theodoret, and adopted by many 
later writers, that the same officers in the Church who were 
first called apostles came afterwards to be designated as 
bishops, is baseless.” ! The same eminent scholar remarks 
further of the evidences in the case: “They show that the 
episcopate was created out of the presbytery. They show 
that this creation was not so much an isolated act as a pro- 
gressive development, not advancing everywhere at a uniform 
rate, but exhibiting at one and the same time different stages 
of growth in different churches.” In view of these facts, no 
proper basis is left for the doctrine of a necessary apostolic 
succession in a line of bishops. An institution which was 
unknown to the first generation of Christians, and which is 
not proved to have been imposed by apostolic authority upon 
even the first generation to which it was known, cannot with- 
out great arbitrariness be exalted into a perpetual test of 
ecclesiastical legitimacy. 

If one prefers to modify the conception of the rise of the 
episcopate, as contained in the sketch just given, by introduc- 
ing Harnack’s conclusion, according to which the primitive 
bishop, as being in particular the almoner of the congregation 
and the superintendent of its worship, was, from the first, dis- 
tinguished from the simple presbyter, we are still remote from 
a historical ground for the High Church contention. Almoners 
and superintendents of worship, commonly subsisting in the 
plural in connection with each local church, are poorly adapted 
to illustrate any sort of hierarchical conception of the epis- 


copate.? 


1 First Dissertation on Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians. 

2 There is good evidence that in some of the principal churches the plural 
episcopate obtained in the second Christian generation as well as in the first. 
‘“‘ Tt was a plural episcopate to which St. Paul referred in the church at Philippi, 
and it was still a plural episcopate in the churches of Rome and Corinth at the 
close of the first century as also in the community described in the Didache. 
What seems like an allusion to a single bishop in 1 Tim. iii. 1. 2 (cf. Titus i. 7) 


33 


502 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


2. It savors of the incredible to suppose that the continued 
existence of the Christian Church was made by divine appoint- 
ment dependent upon the integrity of a succession which no 
one can prove to have been truly maintained. As Archbishop 
Whately has remarked, “ There is not a minister in all Chris- 
tendom who is able to trace up with any approach to certainty 
his own spiritual pedigree.’’! “If we should know,” says 
Frederic Myers, “without dispute, the names of all the per- 
sons who have filled any particular see, from the apostles’ 
time to our own, and the names of the persons by whom they 
were consecrated, this would go but a little way to the proof 
that any apostolic gift had been duly transmitted through the 
medium of this succession. For that some scheme of means 
is essential to the conferring of such a gift by one man on an- 
other will be admitted. Then what the essential means are 
must first be indisputably determined ; and then whether these 
means have been in each case strictly observed. The only 
proof which could be received as satisfactory in a case where 
such tremendous results depend upon the alternative must be 
one which shall afford a reasonable probability that, in every 
one of the distinct terms of the series of ordinations between 
the apostles’ times and our own, this scheme of means has 
been observed uniformly in all essential particulars. Now the 
evidence which is necessary to the establishing of this is of too 
complex and subtle a character to be conveyed through the 
ordinary channels of human testimony. Never in any religion 
of the world was there heard of anything so difficult as this 
theory of the transmission of an invisible latent gift of grace 
for nearly two thousand years being essential to the validity of 
priestly acts.” @ 


may be a desire to call special attention to the grave importance of the office.” 
(A. V. G. Allen, Christian Institutions, p. 43.) 

1 The Kingdom of Christ. Essay II., § 30. 

2 Catholic Thoughts on the Church of Christ and the Church of England, 
Ppp- 102, 103. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §03 


3. It cannot be discovered that those who enjoy the benefits 
of a supposed apostolic succession are notably distinguished, as 
respects spiritual fruits, from those who are destitute of the 
grace of which that succession is claimed to be the exclusive 
channel. It is true that Dr. Pusey and some others have 
believed themselves to have discovered that pious Anglicans 
are favored with an element of religious sanctity which is 
denied to pious Dissenters. But this is an opinion which 
carries conviction only toa party that is more than willing to be 
convinced, While it may add to the complacency with which 
those who entertain it thank God that they are not as other 
men, it cannot count for aught in any court of evidence. 
Meanwhile, the fact lies open to the observation of the world 
that many of those who, according to the High Church phrase, 
are left to the uncovenanted mercies of God, are so adorned 
with the Christian graces, that it is a complete puzzle to figure 
out in what respects they would be better off if they were 
possessed of God’s covenanted mercies. The facts quite un- 
mistakably favor the suspicion that God is larger and more 
generous than He is represented to be in the High Church 
theory. It seems to be the truth that, as He has not confined 
the sunlight to a narrow zone, so He has not bound His grace 
to lines of episcopal succession. 


III. — Tur MINISTRY OF THE WORD. 


In proportion as the spiritual character of the Church is 
emphasized, and the notion of a sacerdotal mechanism is put 
aside, stress falls upon the ministry of the Word as a chief 
function of the Church. Among the threefold offices of 
Christ the prophetical is that to which in particular it is heir. 

We may grant that the Church reflects in some measure 
each of the three offices of Christ. It reflects the kingly in 
so far as it is a codgent with its Divine Head in promoting 


504 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


His spiritual rule in the earth. It reflects the priestly office 
in so far as through prayer and self-sacrificing effort it follows 
up Christ’s reconciling work in behalf of the sinful and the 
unworthy. But the proper fulfillment of these offices is 
largely identical with a faithful witnessing to Christ and His 
truth. Taken in the broad sense, the ministry of the Word, 
or the exposition and enforcement of the truth as it is in 
Christ, is a foremost part of the service which the Church has 
to fulfill. It is its high office to be giving men perpetually 
authentic glimpses of the divine in its most potent aspects as 
these are contained in the character and reconciling work of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The word “authentic ’’ is to be understood here of course 
in a relative sense. It is an arbitrary putting of theory in 
place of fact which predicates infallibility of the Church in its 
teaching function. As history refutes the papal claim, so it 
leaves no reasonable ground for supposing any organ of the 
Church, or the Church as a whole, to be perfectly guarded 
against error.. Nor is it necessary that it should be endowed 
with a prerogative of Deity, in order to fulfill its vocation in 
the earth. By constantly returning, in a teachable spirit, to 
the mirror of divine verities contained in the Bible, it may as- 
sure itself of the main tenor of religious truth, and draw out 
safe and salutary lessons for the practical guidance of men. 
So long as it pursues this method its errors will not fatally 
hide the saving light of divine truth, and, moreover, it will be 
in position to rectify its more serious mistakes; whereas the 
opposite procedure of treating ecclesiastical decisions as pro- 
ducts of infallible authority is a scheme for excluding correc- 
tion, a scheme supremely adapted to promote fossilization in 
error. The less respect is due to this form of idolatry from 
the fact that history teaches that it naturally tends to jealousy 
of the free use of the Scriptures by the people. 

In the ministry of the Word, preaching, or the direct proc- 
lamation of the message of truth, as it was a conspicuous 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 505 


element in the activity of Christ and the apostles, must ever 
hold a prominent place. But the ministry of the Word is not 
confined to this means. A prayer, which has as truly a bibli- 
cal foundation as a sermon, and which affords as persuasive a 
picture of God’s love, or inspires as much awe of His righte- 
ousness, fulfills, to this extent, just as truly as the sermon, a 
ministering of the Word. The well-devised hymn also, as 
being an embodiment of scriptural truth, only in metrical form 
and set to music, is also a means for bringing the Word to the 
ears and hearts of men. In graphic picturing and moving 
appeal it often vies with the most fervid address. Still 
further, a genuine ministry of the Word is afforded when 
Christians in social worship or in private interviews commend 
gospel promises and truths by a modest and candid narrative 
of their religious experiences. When such personal testimon- 
ies get above the plane of routine and prescription, and are 
proffered as spontaneous expressions of gratitude, love, and 
faith, they serve in a special degree to impart a vivid impres- 
sion of the reality of Christ’s relations to men. Once more, 
a literature which is born of Christian faith and is dominated 
by the New Testament ideal, whether formally treating of 
religious themes or not, must be regarded as fulfilling an im- 
portant office in the ministry of the Word. This function of 
the Church is thus seen to be inclusive of a wide-reaching 
activity. While preaching is a leading means of getting the 
truth of Christ into the thought, and conscience, and feeling 
of men, it has many efficient allies. 

The power of the Word, as ministered through the Church, 
has both a natural and a supernatural ground. It is naturally 
effective, since the spiritual wisdom contained in the Word is 
intrinsically adapted to the deep-lying needs and aspirations of 
the human spirit. It reaches results above the plane of 
nature, in that its agency is accompanied by the vitalizing 
presence of the Holy Spirit. Paul gives the explanation of 
the profound effect which has attended many a humble proc- 


506 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


lamation of the Word, when he thus describes his communica- 
tion to the Corinthians: “I was with you in weakness, and 
in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my 
preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in 
demonstration of the spirit and of power: that your faith 
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power 
Or ode a4 

As was noticed in the discussion of regeneration, the reve- 
lation and promulgation of truth are of the nature of an oppor- 
tunity to the Holy Spirit in carrying forward the work of 
spiritual renovation. But it is a decided aberration to suppose, 
as was done by some of the dogmatists of the seventeenth and 
the eighteenth century, that the whole virtue of the Holy 
Spirit has gone, so to speak, into the words of the sacred canon, 
and apart from them there is no longer any sphere for His 
activity. Such a view is a species of deism, a thrusting of 
the second cause into the place of the first. No collection 
of writings can possibly define the scope of the Holy Spirit’s 
agency. While the contents of the Scriptures furnish ready 
and copious materials for spiritual impressions, no one has 
any warrant for saying that the Holy Spirit never works apart 
from these materials in shaping the thoughts and impulses of 
human souls. That point of view would exclude Him from 
all effective contact with the vast aggregate of men who have 
no means of acquaintance with scriptural sayings. Christ’s 
declaration, that God is more willing to give the Holy Spirit 
than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children, 
means naturally something more than that it is His good 
pleasure that men should have a free opportunity to read or 
hear the contents of a collection of sacred books. Only a 
generation which has drifted away from the intense biblical 
view of the divine immanence could harbor such a theory as 
that in question. 


1 3 Cor. ii. 3-5. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 507 


IV. — PRAYER AS RELATED TO CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD. 


New Testament teaching and Christian thought generally 
assume that a social function belongs to prayer, that every 
true child of God will have the disposition to pray for others. 
The obligation to this expression of good will is not open to 
question; neither can there be any occasion to doubt that 
prayer in this sense is fruitful of subjective benefit. It serves 
to lead the petitioner in mind and heart both toward God and 
toward his fellows. The only question for serious considera- 
tion respects its objective efficiency. Against this, it must 
be granted, a somewhat plausible challenge can be brought. 
It can be argued, for example, that God, as being perfectly 
benevolent, is ready to bestow upon those who may be the 
objects of our prayers all the blessings, and especially those 
of a spiritual nature, which they are qualified to receive; and 
so He has no need to wait for our petitions. In answer to 
this objection we may note :— 

1. Prayer for others is an unquenchable impulse in those 
who have the divine treasure and are conscious of its worth. 
It is a spontaneous outflow of good will and is not subject to 
prohibition. This fact may not afford an intelligible account 
of the objective efficacy of prayer; but it certainly suggests 
that the notion of such efficacy cannot be illusory. It is hard 
to suppose that the spiritual world is so constituted that a 
necessary spiritual function should fail altogether of that 
which is its special aim. 

2. An intrinsic connection between the subjective and the 
objective provides for a certain objective efficacy of prayer. 
In sympathetically praying for others we place ourselves in a 
favorable attitude for receiving and fulfilling in their behalf 
divine suggestions of such ministries as may be best adapted 
to promote their well-being. 

3. Expressions of friendly interest and good-will have a 
natural efficacy to reinforce the effect of religious teaching, 


§08 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


and to incline men to give heed to salutary counsel. Prayer for 
others belongs among these expressions. The knowledge that 
one is lovingly remembered before the divine throne may well 
be to him an incentive to look seriously to his own duty and 
privilege. 

4. It is possible that there may be some subtle interrelation 
between souls, so that the earnest persistent concern of one 
for another, even if it is not distinctly brought to the knowl- 
edge of the person upon whom it is expended, may yet be not 
wholly destitute of influence upon his thought and feeling. 
This point, it may be granted, is too speculative to receive 
much emphasis ; but, since scientific opinion is not altogether 
intolerant of the notion of telepathy, the suggestion of a hidden 
means of interaction between souls may be worth stating, in 
opposition to a precipitate verdict against the objective utility 
of prayer. 

5. Both on scriptural and rational grounds God is to be 
considered a factor in all outpouring of benevolent desire. 
He is codgent in every normal prayer. We are, therefore, 
only representing God as consistently following up His own 
action when we suppose Him to accord to prayer a real office 
in the extension of goodness and blessedness in the world. 


V.— THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL. 


The subject of the sacraments bears an intimate relation to 
that of the ministry of the Word. As Augustine apprehended, 
a sacrament is “a kind of visible word.”! It presents truth 
to the eye, serving much the same purpose which is fulfilled 
by well-designed pictures. To specify more closely, we may 
say that the use or purpose of the sacraments is embraced in 
three main particulars: (1) they are special means of solemnly 


1 Tract. in Joan. Ixxx. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 509 


confessing discipleship; (2) they are signs of divine truth 
and grace; (3) they are seals or tokens of God’s benevolent 
will. 

Any voluntary partaking of the sacraments is a solemn 
declaration of personal allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ 
and of faith in Him as the Saviour of men. In this point of 
view they serve an eminent practical end. But the best part 
of their worth is not apprehended in a consideration of what 
the participant gives, but rather ina contemplation of what is 
given to him. Ina vivid way the sacraments set before him 
the great benefits of the new dispensation — the cleansing, the 
forgiveness, and the fellowship which are provided thereby. 
They are divinely chosen signs; and just because they are 
divinely chosen they are more than signs. The facts of the 
economy of grace being supposed, the sacraments would be 
apt signs even were they chosen by men. But, being divinely 
chosen, they are distinct memorials of God’s wish that men 
should be convinced of His benevolent will, and apprehend the 
largeness of His grace. In view of this significance they are 
seals or tokens. They make visible proclamation of the con- 
soling truth that he who fulfills the conditions of the gospel 
call may surely count on a share in the blessings provided by 
redeeming love. 

In a certain sense the sacraments may be termed means of 
grace. They are such in essentially the same sense as the 
ministry of the Word. In so far as they image truth which 
is adapted to the deep needs and aspirations of men they have 
a natural virtue for spiritual effects. So far as the truth 
which they image affords a fit instrument for the Holy Spirit, 
they are accessory to results which are above the plane of 
nature. No virtue beyond this needs to be assumed for the 
sacraments. At least, no scriptural sentence requires such 
assumption, and no rational construction can be given to the 
same. ‘The only conceivable ways in which a physical instru- 
ment can be made subservient to spiritual effects is by sug- 


§10 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


gestion of truth, or by serving as a means or occasion in 
relation to a spiritual agent; and that the sacraments afford 
any means or fit occasion of working to the Holy Spirit, which 
He does not have in kind apart from them, waits to be proved. 
It is a magical pharmacy, and out of harmony with the spiritual 
nature of Christianity, which supposes that physical things can 
fulfill a remedial function for human souls in other ways than 
those specified. Christ should be understood to have put 
a veto on all sacramental materialism in these words: “It 
is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: 
the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are 
likes 

In the early Church the word sacrament had a very indef- 
inite range, being applied to a variety,of rites and also to the 
more significant events and truths of the new dispensation. 
The Roman Catholic list of seven sacraments was propounded 
by Peter Lombard in the twelfth century, and was sanctioned 
by ecclesiastical authority near the middle of the fifteenth 
century. Evidently it is largely a matter of option, or human 
agreement, what extension shall be given to the term “sacra- 
ments.” The important consideration is that no other rites, 
either in the Roman Catholic list of seven, or in any other 
list, stand on a parity with baptism and the Lord’s supper. 
These, if we may trust a primitive and dominant tradition, 
were distinctly enjoined by Christ. They stand forth as the 
peculiar rites of the new dispensation. They have also a pro- 
nounced symbolical import. On the other hand, all rites be- 
sides these which have been styled sacraments are destitute 
of credible proof that they were instituted by Christ, and some 
of them are also wanting in respect of a distinct symbolical 
import. It is, therefore, in the interest of a consistent ter- 
minology to class baptism and the Lord’s supper by themselves 
as the sacraments of the Christian Church. 


1 John vi. 63. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. Sir 


VI. — Baptism. 


Baptism in its Christian use served from the beginning as 
an initiatory rite. It signified, as the act of the candidate, the 
entrance or the open confession of entrance, into a new re- 
ligious relation, namely, that of discipleship toward the Lord 
Jesus Christ. As a divinely chosen symbol it represents the 
entrance into a new religious state, a state appropriate to the 
new relation, that is, a state of cleansing from the guilt and 
pollution of sin. Cleansing, washing, making new by taking 
away the old ingrained corruption —this is essentially the 
typical sense of baptism, as is to be concluded from the natural 
association of water with purification, from the Old Testament 
symbolism, and from the tenor of the New Testament refer- 
ences! It is true that Paul in two or three instances asso- 
ciated baptism with burial and resurrection.? But, though a 
considerable number of theological writers, moved in part by 
a controversial interest, have been inclined to make this repre- 
sentation the standard for New Testament thought, it is 
decidedly more consonant with the sum total of biblical state- 
ments to regard the Pauline sentences as expressive of a 
secondary association of baptism than of its primary and more 
obvious import. It is an instance of specializing after the 
somewhat subtle manner to which the apostle was much given. 
By his absorbing interest in the thought of Christ’s death he 
was led to substitute for the general notion of purification and 
renovation, which belongs to baptism, the more special notion 
of coming to newness of life by dying, so to speak, with Christ 
and rising again. The figure is Pauline, natural to one who 
made so much of mystical union with Christ in His death. 
But Paul himself seems not to have been tied to this particular 


1 Ps. li. 2, 7; Isa. i. 16, 18; Jer. iv. 14; Ezek. xvi. 9; John iii. 5; Acts xxii. 
16; Eph. v. 26; Titus iii. 5; 1 Pet. iii. 21. 
2 Rom. ii. 3-5; Coll. ii. 12. 


512 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


view of baptism;! so that there is very slight occasion to take 
it as the precise expression of the meaning of the rite, as 
opposed to the idea of cleansing and renewal suggested by the 
major part of the data at hand. 

In the first days of Christianity, baptism was coincident 
ordinarily with a religious crisis. Immediately upon the exer- 
cise of faith in the person and saving office of Christ it was 
administered as the proper expression of that faith and the 
seal of discipleship. Falling thus at the initiation of a new 
life, and being often attended with tokens of the presence and 
power of the Holy Spirit, it was naturally very closely asso- 
ciated with the regeneration which it symbolized. Under a 
different order of conditions, where the new life initiated by 
faith is not commonly coincident with the era of baptism, 
it has properly a less intimate association with regeneration. 
It may still be given a certain association therewith, in that 
the grace which goes with its proper reception is in the line of 
regenerating efficiency, an increment in the new life. But 
to make baptism distinctly the instrument or occasion of re- 
generation, under a scheme which commonly interposes an 
interval between self-surrendering faith in Christ and the 
administration of the rite, is to banish faith utterly from the 
primacy which the New Testament accords to it in the appro- 
priation of salvation. On page after page there is a direct or 
indirect inculcation of the maxim, ‘ Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ and thou shalt be saved,” whereas baptism is associ- 
ated with the grasp of saving benefits only in isolated in- 
stances. In fact it is given no more positive association with 
regeneration than is the ministry of the Word;? so that it 
would be just about as proper and scriptural to limit regen- 
eration to an occasion of sermon-hearing as to limit it to a 
baptismal occasion. In a true perspective of New Testa- 


re a  S 


1 Eph. v. 26. 
2 John xvii. 17; James i. 18; 1 Pet. i. 23; 2 Pet. i. 4. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 513 


ment teaching it is clear enough that no external transaction 
whatever stands on anything like a parity with that interior 
central act of man’s religious personality which is called faith, 
the profoundly ethical and religious transaction by which one 
delivers himself up to God as revealed in Jesus Christ. This 
is the great condition of salvation, apart from which there is 
no warrant for supposing that any external worship or exercise 
in hearing can avail aught, and with which there is no strict 
necessity for any ceremonial adjunct. It is true that Christ 
is reported to have said to Nicodemus, except a man be born 
of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God. But any one who will read the whole passage cannot 
fail to see that the main stress is upon the office of the Spirit 
and not upon that of water. He may observe also that the 
reference to water appears to be introduced by way of explana- 
tion, or for the purpose of elucidating to Nicodemus the mean- 
ing of re-birth, the association here of water with the Spirit 
being analagous to the association of fire with the Spirit in 
the synoptical representation.1 The whole sentence, there- 
fore, may be regarded as teaching that unless the Holy Spirit 
works in a man that cleansing or renewal which is symbolized 
by the use of water, he can be no fit subject for the kingdom 
of God. That the same Christ, who rebuked the ceremonial 
scrupulosity and littleness of the Pharisees, and declared so 
emphatically the readiness of the heavenly Father to bestow 
the Holy Spirit in response to sincere asking, meant to repre- 
sent the renewing operation of the Spirit as bound to a cere- 
monial use of water is simply inconceivable.2_ The experience 
of the apostles certainly interposed a very decided barrier 
against the harboring by them of any such ultra-ritualistic 
notion. Peter, for example, was a witness of the unmistakable 
tokens of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Cornelius 





1 Luke ili. 16; Matt. iii. 11. 
2 Matt. xv. 1-20; Mark vii. 1-23; Luke xi. 13. 


514 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


and his friends, antecedent to their reception of baptism, and 
himself asked, “‘Can any man forbid the water, that these 
should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost 
as well as we?”’! 

By a comparatively early exaggeration, stress upon the pro- 
priety and utility of baptism passed over into an assertion of 
its necessity. From the days of Augustine it was the current 
opinion in the Latin Church that no one can be saved in de- 
fault of baptism, except on the score of a desire and purpose 
which would secure the rite if the opportunity should be 
offered. As infants cannot furnish these compensations, there 
was understood to be no chance of their salvation in case 
they should die unbaptized. In the modern Roman Catholic 
Church, though an occasional theologian has dissented from 
this view, it has continued to hold the place of a standard 
belief. Perrone says: “ Infants departing from this life with- 
out baptism, do not attain to eternal salvation”’ ;* and he adds 
that this proposition is a part of the established faith — a con- 
clusion which is unavoidable if strict dogmatic authority be 
affirmed of the Tridentine Catechism, since it plainly con 
ditions the salvation of infants upon baptism.3 

On the merits of such a doctrine, it is enough to say that 
it turns the divine benevolence into an enigmatic and unmean- 
ing phrase. The God who excludes countless millions of souls 
from the kingdom of heaven for a mere lack of a ceremonial 
application of water must in consistency be regarded as caring 
little or nothing for souls. In some respects this inference of 


ACS XA? 2 Praelect. Theol., De Hom. 

8 Pars II. Cap. ii. 31, 34. Nihil magis necessarium videri potest, quam ut 
[fideles] doceantur, omnibus hominibus baptismi legem a Domino praescriptam 
esse ita, ut, nisi per baptisimi gratiam Deo renascantur, in sempiternam mise- 
riam et interitum a parentibus, sive illi fideles, sive infideles sint, procreentur. 
-.. Quum pueris infantibus nulla alia salutis comparandae ratio, nisi eis bap- 
tismus praebeatur, relicta sit: facile intelligitur, quam gravi culpa illi sese ob. 
stringant, qui eos sacramenti gratia diutius, quam necessitas postulet, carere 
patiantur, 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §15 


an intemperate sacramentalism is worse than the dogma of 
absolute reprobation. The predestinarian, making the number 
of the reprobate God’s secret, can at least entertain the hope 
that it is a small minority of the race. But the ultra sacra- 
mentalist is confronted by the indisputable fact that no small 
fraction of the human family dies without baptism in infancy, 
and so, from his point of view, is hopelessly doomed. More- 
over, it is difficult to exclude the essence of the doctrine of 
unconditional reprobation in connection with belief in the 
necessary doom of unbaptized infants. If those who live to 
adult years have any real opportunity either to receive baptism 
or to afford compensations for the same, then those who die 
unbaptized in infancy are discriminated against. They appear 
as a class that is damned without having had the slightest 
chance by personal agency to escape damnation. If their 
early death be counted purely accidental, it argues indiffer- 
ence and arbitrariness in God to hinge their eternal destiny 
on accidents which they had no power to avoid. If, on the 
other hand, their early death is reckoned as a part of a provi- 
dential order, then their damnation is made to appear as a 
part of God’s regular scheme. In any case the spirit, if not 
the precise form, of the doctrine of arbitrary reprobation 
cleaves to this theory of an overdrawn sacramentalism re- 
specting the necessity of baptism. The atrocity of the theory 
is indeed mitigated to some extent by the supposition that the 
punishment of unbaptized infants consists in being deprived 
of a good, rather than in any positive infliction of pain. Still, 
the theory outrages the thought of divine justice and benevo- 
lence, since the good of which the unbaptized are said to be 
deprived is the proper goal of the human spirit, and to be 
numbered with the lost, as opposed to the saved, cannot mean 
anything less than an immeasurable calamity, unless language 
be used with utter frivolity. 

Those who insist upon the necessity of baptism very natur- 
ally credit it with a decisive effect.even in purely passive sub- 


516 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


jects, such as are infants. But no good warrant for this 
opinion can be found in Scripture, reason, or experience. It 
cannot be found in Scripture, for that says not a word about 
the effect of baptism on subjects who are incapable of exer- 
cising faith or confessing discipleship. It cannot be found in 
reason, for there is no more of natural opportunity for the 
working of the Holy Spirit in the infant that receives baptism 
than in the one that is denied the rite; and if, accordingly, a 
saving transformation is wrought in the one and refused to the 
other, an extravagant premium is put on ritual as opposed to 
souls. It cannot be found in experience, for no one is able 
to discover that baptized subjects are not required to meet 
every demand of personal conscious agency which is imposed 
upon the unbaptized, in order to the initiation of genuine piety 
of heart and life. That the Holy Spirit is near to the soul of 
the young child, and has ways of shaping or counteracting its 
most initial moral tendencies, may be true; but that His 
agency in such a subject is tied to the rite of baptism, or is 
peculiarly operative therein, is an ecclesiastical fancy for which 
no good warrant has ever been discovered. 


The propriety of infant baptism is not measured by the 
extent of its immediate effect upon its subject. On the part 
of believing parents, it is a solemn expression of their wish to 
dedicate their offspring to the Lord, and to have them par- 
takers of all the sanctities of the Christian religion. On the 
part of the children, it is a reminder, as soon as they come to 
years of understanding, that they ought not to count them- 
selves aliens to Christ’s family, but as already having a dis- 
tinct relation thereto, which it behoves them to carry forward 
to perfection. This relation, it is true, should not be given 
too much of the character of a finality. After generous room 
has been conceded to the charitable assumption that the child 
trained in Christian teachings will become in spirit and in 
truth a disciple of Christ, his own choice and line of conduct 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. S17 


should be allowed to determine his standing as being within 
or without the circle of church fellowship proper. Meanwhile, 
the consciousness of an already existing relation to religious 
society may naturally serve as a motive for reflection and for 
choice in the right direction. 

Doubtless the silence of the New Testament may be urged 
in objection to the practice of infant baptism. But two con- 
siderations serve to break very largely the force of this objec- 
tion. In the first place, no detailed treatment is given to the 
subject of baptism in the New Testament. In the second 
place, aside from a slender thread of narrative, the whole of 
the New Testament is made up of discourses and epistles 
addressed to the adult understanding on the great themes of 
the Christian religion. Naturally the conditions of baptism 
that are specified in such a subject-matter correspond with the 
standing of the persons immediately contemplated, and are 
defined to be in particular repentance and faith. The Jews 
in making proselytes imposed analogous demands, without, 
however, implying that those born in a Jewish household 
must meet these demands before they could receive the sign 
of the Old Testament covenant. So the demands which are 
put forth in the essentially missionary messages of the New 
Testament are not necessarily interpreted as rigidly applying 
to those born in Christian households. Moreover, it may be 
noticed that silence about the baptism of children is paralleled 
by silence about the method of their salvation. Does the 
latter prove that they are not subjects of salvation? Lack 
of specific treatment of either point is no decisive means of 
judgment. We are thus directed to general grounds of infer- 
ence, and note the following in favor of infant baptism : — 

1. The religious relation of the children of believers was 
acknowledged under the old dispensation, and was signalized 
by applying to them the covenant sign. As Dorner argues, 
“The Church cannot be poorer than the synagogue, the new 


covenant cannot express less love than the covenant of circum- 
34 


518 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


cision, whose benefits applied also to children. The first ser- 
mon of Peter alluded to this.” ! 

2. Christ’s reception of little children and the blessing which 
He pronounced upon them intimate that they are proper sub- 
jects of religious recognition.? Paul’s words, also, are indicative 
of the conviction that the children of believing parents are 
properly viewed as having a distinctive relation to the Chris- 
tian brotherhood. Now in baptism parents and Church unite 
in giving solemn recognition of the religious relation in which 
children are normally conceived to be standing. 

3. Early usage, while. not decisive, rather favors than ex- 
cludes the supposition that infant baptism was sanctioned 
by apostolic practice, at least was not unknown before the 
close of the apostolic era. Cyprian assumed, at the middle 
of the third century, together with the bishops associated 
with him in North Africa, that it was the common duty of 
parents to have their children baptized soon after their birth.‘ 
Origen’s references to the subject indicate that a like view 
had place at the same time in the East, and was no recent 
innovation, since he declares the administration of baptism 
to infants a matter of apostolic tradition.® Tertullian’s oppo- 
sition to it about a half century earlier—mainly on the 
ground of the inexpediency of placing children, or their 
sponsors, under the heavy responsibilities of the baptismal 
covenant — shows that it was being practiced at that date.® 
The same motive which led him to oppose haste in the case 
of children also led him to advise the postponement of bap- 
tism even for adults whose circumstances in life exposed 
them to considerable temptations. As in this item he seems 


1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 141. 

2 Matt. xix. 13-15; Mark x. 13-16. 

8 1 Cor. vii. 14. 

* Epist. Iviii., ad Fidum. 

5 Comm. in epist. ad Rom. v. 9; In Lev. Hom. viii. 
® De Baptismo, xviii. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 519 


to have gone counter to early precedent, so there is little or 
no guarantee that he respected any good precedent in his 
dissuasion from infant baptism. Earlier than Tertullian 
there is no very definite reference to the subject, a fact that 
is not surprising when we consider the very brief and scanty 
references to the general topic of baptism in the writings of 
the second century. A comparison of two passages of Ire- 
nzus affords a measure of probability that he had in mind, 
as he wrote, the custom of baptizing infants.} 


Among subordinate questions it remains to notice the 
form of baptism, the relation of John’s baptism to the Chris- 
tian, and the question of the allowable repetition of the rite. 

Those who lay great stress upon the form of baptism very 
commonly take these grounds: (1) The primitive meaning 
of the word farrw is to immerse. (2) This meaning was 
retained intact in connection with the Christian appropria- 
tion of the word, since Christ, when He gave the command 
to baptize, had in mind not merely such a use of water as 
might symbolize purification and renovation, but distinctively 
and exclusively the rite of immersion, and designed to make 
this special mode of using water obligatory for all time. 

The first of these points needs very little consideration. 
Every one admits that words frequently travel away from 
their original sense, and gain applied and accommodated 
meanings, Any evidence, therefore, as to the significance 
of the word daptizo, which may have been prevalent in pre- 
Christian time, affords no more than probability, not decisive 
proof, as respects its Christian sense. Of the points speci- 
fied the second is properly entitled to the main consideration. 
A rational judgment needs to be formed as to Christ’s atti- 
tude in relation to the Christian rite. Only a fraction of the 
pertinent considerations is taken into account when it is 





1 Cont. Haer. ii. 22. 4, iii. 17. 1. 


520 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


assumed that Christ had a mental picture of a particular 
mode of using water when He gave the command to baptize, 
or that the apostles had an image of one special way of using 
water when they spoke of baptism. The glance of Christ’s 
eye or the movement of His thought may have been to a par- 
ticular kind of lily, when He declared that Solomon’s apparel 
could not compare with its beautiful clothing ; but it does not 
follow that He would not have said the same of other species 
of flowers equally adapted to vie with Solomon’s glory. 
Similarly He may have had in mind a specific picture of 
table customs when He instituted a memorial feast, and yet 
have been remote from the purpose to make out of this order 
of mental association an inflexible law for the celebration of 
the eucharistic rite. Applying the illustration, we may say 
that Christ, borrowing from current ceremonial usage, may 
have had in mind a particular form of baptismal rite, with- 
out placing any considerable stress upon that form, or design- 
ing to make it invariably binding. It is plainly not enough 
to surmise the mental image which He entertained in order 
to make out an exclusive claim for one special form. It 
must also. be known that His mind, above and beyond the 
general religious purpose to be served by the rite, was tena- 
cious of the special form, so that He wished to leave no mar- 
gin for variation in accordance with different conditions and 
circumstances. But who has the means of knowing this? 
With all respect to the advocates of the exclusive validity of 
immersion, it must be affirmed that it is utterly improbable 
that Christ, in prescribing baptism, was inflexibly tenacious in 
respect of form, or meant to exclude all margin of variation. 
A rite typical of a purified and renovated life, and serving as 
an open confession of discipleship, was the important thing 
to be secured; and the securing of this much is consistent 
with a varied use of water. That Christ’s attitude of mind 
was one of tolerance toward accommodation and variety may 
be argued on two grounds. In the first place, His whole 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §21 


ministry was characterized by stress upon the spirit, as op- 
posed to exaggerating the value of forms. He was ever call- 
ing men to the large and free life of faith and love, not to 
the narrowness of ceremonial scrupulosity. In the second 
place, the facts of early Christian history favor the suppo- 
sition that it was agreeable to the mind of Christ to allow a 
measure of flexibility in ceremonial requisitions. The lan- 
guage of Cyprian makes it clear that near the middle of the 
third century sprinkling was counted a valid mode of baptism 
for the sick.’ At an earlier date — somewhat uncertain, but 
probably not remote from the verge of the apostolic era — 
the so-called ‘‘ Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” shows that 
the mode of baptism was allowed to be varied for other con- 
ditions than those of sickness, a difficulty as respects access 
to running water being specified as a sufficient warrant for 
simply pouring water upon the head of the candidate.? The 
champion of immersion, it is true, may have the courage to 
say that this flexibility as to mode was of the nature of a 
corruption. But a community that was moving away from 
apostolic spirituality would naturally have diverged from the 
primitive standpoint, not by greater flexibility in usage, but 
in the way of greater elaboration of forms and punctilious- 
ness in their observance. To suppose that Jesus or Paul 
was not willing to grant as much liberty in respect of forms 
as was allowed by the author of a treatise so legal in tone as 
the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” is to suppose the 
very improbable, not to say the absurd. 

In view of these considerations, it becomes a matter of 
secondary importance to determine what was the standing 
association of the word daptizo in the first century, or what 
image most naturally went with it in the mind of Christ. 
Very likely the word was still suggestive, to a considerable 
extent, of the meaning which pertained to it originally, 


1 Epist. Ixxv. 12, ad Magnum. 2 Didache, Chap. vii. 


522 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


namely, immersion. But there are indications that its signifi- 
cance had been broadened, so that it could be used without 
any conscious reference to a complete submergence in the 
baptismal element. Thus in the Gospels —not to mention 
instances where baptism seems to be used as the equivalent 
of washing ! — Christ is portrayed as one who should baptize 
with the Holy Ghost and with fire ;* but in the Book of Acts 
the fulfillment is pictured by the descent of tongues of fire 
upon the heads of the disciples, not by a submergence of the 
subjects of the baptism. Again, a comparison of chapter i. § 
with chapter 11. 16-18, in the Book of Acts, identifies baptism 
by the Holy Spirit as baptism by an outpouring. The same 
identification appears in Peter’s account of the baptism of 
Cornelius.® 

These are very good evidences that even in New Testa- 
ment thinking the meaning of baptism was not summed up 
in immersion. It was, therefore, in the line of scriptural pre- 
cedent when, in the second century, more than immersion was 
included under the term, as appears in the option conceded 
in the “ Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’”’ in the custom of 
styling martyrdom the baptism of blood, and in the fact that 
the first Latin fathers, instead of translating by zmersio the 
Greek word for baptism, simply transferred it into Latin. 

Less conclusive than the facts and considerations presented, 
but yet sufficient to establish a certain probability of latitude 
under apostolic administration, is the narrative of instances in 
which the circumstances speak against the credibility of com- 
plete immersion — such instances as the baptism of three 
thousand at Pentecost in the hostile city of Jerusalem, and 
the baptism of the Philippian jailer and his household in the 
night by imprisoned evangelists. 

If practical considerations are allowed to have any weight, 

1 Luke xi. 38; Mark vii. 4. Compare Heb. ix. 10. 


2 Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16. 
8 Acts xi. 16, 17. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §23 


it must be granted that the physical element is too prominent 
in the immersion of adult candidates to make it under all 
natural and social conditions an ideal rite for a thoroughly 
rational and spiritual religion. The crucifixion involved in an 
honest submission to immersion may undoubtedly have its 
reward ; but Christianity is not so much of a monastic scheme 
that it hinges benefits on any needless bodily austerity. 

As Christ associated John the Baptist with the vanishing 
Old Testament dispensation, rather than placed him distinctly 
within the new kingdom which He Himself represented,! the 
natural inference is that John’s baptism belonged to a pre- 
liminary order of things, and so was not properly Christian 
baptism. This inference is confirmed by the account of those 
whom Paul baptized at Ephesus notwithstanding they had al- 
ready received John’s baptism.” 

In general, since baptism is the rite of initiation into the 
Christian communion, its repetition involves an incongruity. 
Only in cases where the title to the Christian name, on the 
part of the communion in whose midst it was administered, 
is fairly open to question, is it appropriate to ask for its 
repetition. 


VII.— Tue Lorp’s Supper. 


While baptism is the rite of initiation into Christian fellow- 
ship, the Lord’s supper is the rite of continued fellowship, on 
the part of disciples, both with Christ and with one another, 
and accordingly, in contrast with the former, was designed for 
frequent repetition. 

In a full statement of the significance of the Lord’s supper, 
such as may be gathered from the sum total of New Testa- 
ment references,® the following specifications are in point: 





1 Matt. xi. 11. 2 Acts xix. I-7. 
8 Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 19, 20; 1 Cor. x. 15-17, 


xi. 23-29. 


524 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


(1) The supper is a memorial of the sacrificial death of Christ, 
or of His broken body and shed blood. “As often as ye eat 
this bread and drink this cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death 
till He come.” (2) Inasmuch as the emblems are not merely 
viewed, but also taken by the communicant, the rite is sig- 
nificant of a close personal relation — the offer of Christ in 
all the benefits of His passion and the acceptance of Him as 
thus offered. (3) As being of the Lord’s own appointment, 
it is a token of His gracious will, a seal of the new covenant. 
(4) As being a response on the part of the communicant to 
this token, it is a solemn confession of discipleship and a 
pledge of loyal devotion. (5) Since it brings the disciples of 
Christ together in the intimacy of a sacred meal, it is signifi- 
cant of their oneness in their head. “The bread which we 
break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? seeing 
that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all 
partake of the one bread.” 

Thus the Lord’s supper is a most deep, solemn, and tender 
message of divine truth. It memorializes the greatest deed 
of divine love, and invites by its apt emblems to a trustful 
and affectionate appropriation of the highest grace. If truth 
is ever utilized by the Holy Spirit for the edification of the 
disciple, then no reason can be imagined why the rich message 
of this sacred feast should not be effective of large spiritual 
benefit to all true participants. 

The obvious spiritual meaning of the sacrament is so full 
and satisfactory that it is very little to the credit of the 
Church that it ever had the disposition to obscure that mean- 
ing by an overgrowth of materialism and magic. The maxi- 
mum specimen of this overgrowth is seen in the doctrine of 
transubstantiation, which came to prominence in the eighth 
and ninth centuries, and obtained its first ecumenical sanction 
at the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215. As authoritatively 
promulgated by the Council of Trent, this doctrine assumes 
that by the act of consecration the substance of bread and 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 525 


wine is changed into the substance of Christ’s body and blood ; 
and that the entire Christ is under each species (apparent 
bread and wine), and under every part of each species when 
separated. In opposition to this vast assumption the follow- 
ing considerations are to be urged : — 

1. Exegetically the assumption is entirely unnecessary. It 
was but a sober instance of Oriental rhetoric when Christ 
named the bread and wine His body and blood. Parallel in- 
stances of a like graphic way of speaking are found in his 
recorded discourses, as, for example, when He speaks of Him- 
self as the “door” or the “vine.’’ Indeed, it would not have 
sounded like the language of Christ if He had formally char- 
acterized the bread and wine as emblems or symbols. There 
was no demand in the circumstances of the occasion for such 
formality and precision. The unsophisticated men who were 
with Him, being familiar with His manner of speech, and 
seeing Him intact before themselves, could not have once 
dreamed that the bread and wine were aught but chosen 
means to figure the body and blood of their Master. More- 
over, in another connection Christ had already taken pains to 
repudiate the materialistic notion that there was to be any 
actual eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood, or that 
any benefit could be derived therefrom.1 

2. The Roman Catholic doctrine assumes the rationally 
inconceivable, in that it predicates the transformation of one 


1 John vi. 63. The discoveryin this chapter of a dogmatic discourse on the 
eucharist is quite at fault. Aside from the light cast by the great interpreting 
sentence at the close, two facts stand opposed to the supposition of a content 
of that sort. In the first part of the discourse the same office is assigned to 
faith which in the latter part is assigned to eating Christ’s flesh and drinking 
His blood. Again, the eating and drinking are described as in themselves 
effective; no condition that these acts must be done worthily is stated. Put- 
ting these facts together we are directed to the conclusion that the eating and 
drinking are figurative terms for a spiritual transaction, namely, the appropria- 
ation of Christ in the whole virtue of the truth and saving office which pertain 
to Him. 


526 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION, 


substance into another already existing substance. This is 
no better than saying that 1 + 1 = 1. To secure any ap- 
proach to congruity of thought, it would be necessary to 
assume that the substance of the bread and wine is anni- 
hilated and replaced by the substance of Christ’s body and 
blood. But the standard Romish definition, instead of making 
room for this conception, speaks of “ conversion of substance.” 
The natural inference is that its framers meant to affirm 
that one substance is actually turned into another already 
existing substance. This was plainly the view of Thomas 
Aquinas, who distinctly rejected the supposition of annihila- 
tion and replacement.) _ 

3. The doctrine of transubstantiation involves an artificial 
and unphilosophical notion of the relation between substance 
and attribute. So far as any human test can discover, every 
attribute that belonged to the eucharistic bread and wine be- 
fore consecration is retained after the formula of institution 
has been pronounced. The assumed change of substance 
leaves every attribute of which we have any knowledge in- 
tact. We are thus asked to believe that the relation between 
substance and attribute is much the same as that between a 
cushion and the pins which are stuck into it ; the cushion is 
removed, and by a kind of divine magic the pins are kept in 
their old positions. This may answer for an untrained im- 
agination. But in a tolerable metaphysical conception it 
must be seen that substance and attribute are inseparable; 
that, if a thing exists, it must exist in some special mode or 
modes; that these modes are what is meant by attributes ?; 
and that, accordingly, to strip off the attributes and to leave 


1 Sum. Theol. Pars ili. Quaest. Ixxv. Art. 3. 

2 It may be observed here that a Roman Catholic scholar, in a recent volume, 
represents the definition of the scholastics as essentially coinciding with this 
statement, the terms employed by them in describing a quality or attribute 
being modus essendi vel dispositio substantiae.. (Otto Willmann, Geschichte des 
Idealismus, 1896, II. 375.) 





CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 527 


the substance, or to expel the substance and leave the at- 
tributes, is entirely out of the question. That in Romish 
nomenclature the term “accidents” is put in place of attri- 
butes does not help the matter, All the known attributes of 
bread and wine, including those as fundamentally associated 
with them in our thought as extension, weight, color, and 
nourishing power, come into the account ; so that the advo- 
cate of transubstantiation must either grant that attributes 
proper are separable from substance, or that we have no 
knowledge of any attribute whatever. His theory, therefore, 
crowds him into the indefensible notion that there is no neces- 
sary connection between existence and modes of existence. 

It may be noticed that, from other points of view, the Ro- 
man Catholic theory is seen to involve an arbitrary severance 
of substance and attribute. According to that theory, the 
bodily substance of an adult human being can be wholly con- 
tained within the limits of a particle no larger thana needle’s 
point, and there be robbed of every sort of manifestation, so 
as to be absolutely beyond the reach of human perception. 
Now, to say that bodily substance can retain its integrity, or 
real nature, in spite of such suppression of all its known 
characteristics, is as much as saying that there is no neces- 
sary connection between substance and attribute. Toadd to 
the burden which is put upon rational thinking by the theory 
in question, it enforces the conclusion that a given set of at- 
tributes is not suppressed at the very time that it is sup- 
pressed — not suppressed, that is, as belonging to Christ’s 
body in the heavenly sphere, where presumably it exhibits 
the human type in stature and contour, but suppressed in the 
same identical subject as contained in any portion of the 
eucharistic species. Imagine a piece of iron glowing at a 
white heat in one place, and at the same time covered with 
frost in another place, or absolutely void of any token of tem- 
perature or any other state or quality. 

The current assertion of Roman Catholic theologians, that 


528 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


the body of Christ is present in the eucharistic species after 
the manner of a spirit involves the same artificial relation be- 
tween substance and attribute. If a body can take on the 
mode of subsistence of a spirit, why may not the reverse be 
true? Why may we not suppose spirits that are light or 
heavy, brown or white, conical, cubical, or cylindrical in 
shape? Then, too, it is not a little puzzling to define what 
can be meant by eating a body that subsists in the mode of 
a spirit. 

_ 4. Contradictory representations are involved by the Ro- 
man Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation as respects motion 
and multipresence. Since the whole substance of Christ’s 
body is declared to be in each separate portion of consecrated 
bread, and these portions may be at the same time in all parts 
of the world, it follows that the same undivided physical sub- 
stance may at the same instant be moving east and west, 
north and south, upwards and downwards; that, in fact, it 
may be travelling at once in all conceivable directions around 
the earth, or may be resting in its entirety within every square 
mile on the face of the earth, or even performing both of these 
feats at once. To take a historic instance, we are required to 
think that in the last supper, as celebrated by Christ with 
His disciples, the whole substance of his body may have been 
at the same time in His living frame, in His hand or mouth, 
and in the hand or mouth of each disciple. Now all this is 
not merely in defiance of the imagination, it is equally an- 
tagonistic to rational thinking. Whatever else a physical sub- 
stance may be, it is certainly a definite quantum of physical 
force or energy. To assume, then, that a physical substance 
can move in its entirety in all conceivable directions, and be in 
its entirety in any number of distinct places, is just as good as 
saying that a definite quantum of physical force or energy can 
be increased ten thousand times, and yet remain the same. 

5. The doctrine of transubstantiation cannot be reconciled 
with religious propriety in the act of communing. Only a 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 529 


peculiarly educated sentimentality can regard that a proper 
dealing with the sacred body of Christ, which consigns it to 
mouth and stomach. First to worship and then literally to 
eat the Christ in the consecrated wafer is to join the highest 
tribute with the greatest indignity. 

Some of the above objections to the Roman Catholic doc- 
trine do not apply to the Lutheran theory of the presence of 
the body of Christ together with the substance of bread and 
wine, as these visible elements are received by the communi- 
cant; but others of them do apply. In general, theories of 
the real bodily presence, aside from the question of their 
rational conceivability, are amenable to these criticisms : — 

1. They withdraw attention from the central meaning of 
the eucharistic rite as a memorial of Christ’s death. The 
body which is supposed to be present can be only the glorified 
body. In proportion, therefore, as the thought is concen- 
trated upon that, the historic intent of the rite fails of fulfill- 
ment, and it ceases to vitalize the sense of fellowship with the 
suffering and dying Redeemer. 

2. These theories involve an unscriptural materialism. 
The whole trend of the New Testament directs to depend- 
ence upon the truth and Spirit of God for spiritual effects. 
There seems, then, to be no proper function left for the real 
body of Christ in the eucharistic elements. Spiritual effects 
are not appropriate to such an agent, that is, an invisible physi- 
cal substance ; and there is no warrant for supposing that the 
Lord’s supper was meant to be a medium of corporeal benefits. 
To be sure, some theologians have imagined that Christ’s 
glorified body, as proffered in the eucharistic elements, some- 
how works toward the bodily transfiguration which is consum- 
mated in the resurrection. But there is no proper warrant 
for this notion. The Scriptures ascribe the resurrection to the 
marvelous working of God’s power, and in no wise teach that 
a mere lack of participation of the eucharistic elements will 
nullify the believer’s prospect of attaining to a glorified body. 


§30 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


It is doubtless very easy for the advocates of the real 
bodily presence to charge upon their opponents, that they 
leave to the Lord’s supper only empty symbols. But the 
elements, though symbolical, are not empty symbols. As 
was seen, they have a rich spiritual import. To view in them 
the most precious truths of the redemptive economy is to dis- 
cover and to utilize a far better content than can be found in 
a physical presence for which no appropriate spiritual function 
can be specified. 

There being no proper warrant for the real bodily presence, 
there can be of course no warrant for the idea of the eucharis- 
tic sacrifice as embodied in the Roman Catholic doctrine of 
the mass —a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the 
dead. No victim is present to be offered upon the altar. 
Moreover, no foundation for the doctrine can be discovered 
in any words of Christ or the apostles, save by an exegetical 
absolutism akin to that which forces the dogma of papal in- 
fallibility into utterly irrelevant texts. The New Testament 
contemplates no other propitiatory sacrifice than that which 
was consummated on the cross, once for all.) It is true that 
a doctrine of sacrifice, approaching to the Roman Catholic, 
was well under way before the end of the fourth century. 
But it was as distinctly an innovation as was the contempo- 
rary saint-worship. The earlier fathers did not entertain it, 
though a few of them spoke in a free rhetorical way of the 
eucharistic elements as a thank-offering presented by the 
congregation. The following words of Irenzus are in point, 
and indicate how moderate a sacrificial import was attributed 
to the eucharist in the latter part of the second century: 
“Sacrifices do not sanctify a man, for God stands in no need 
of sacrifice; but it is the conscience of the offerer which 
sanctifies the sacrifice when it is pure, and thus moves God 
to accept it as froma friend. .. . Now we make an offering to 


1 Heb. ix. 24-28. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 53! 


Him, not as though He stood in need of it, but rendering 
thanks for His gift, and thus sanctifying what has been 
created.”! Not far from the time of Irenzus, Clement of 
Alexandria reproduced more nearly the proper conception of 
sacrifice within the compass of the new dispensation. ‘The 
sacrifice of the Church,” he says, “is the word breathing as 
incense from holy souls. ... The righteous soul is the truly 
sacred altar, and incense arising from it is holy prayer.”? 

Since baptism is the initiatory rite of Christian discipleship, 
there is obviously a certain propriety in making it in general 
the antecedent of the privilege to participate in the Lord’s 
supper. But no one can prove that it is the will of Christ, 
that, always, irrespective of the demands of special circum- 
stances, baptism must be insisted upon as a prerequisite to 
access to the Lord’s table. It is not in the spirit of Christ 
to reckon rigid conformity to ecclesiastical propriety above the 
dictates of Christian cordiality, Much less, then, is it legiti- 
mate to insist upon a special form of baptism as a condition 
of participation in the eucharist.% 


VIII. — THE ALLEGED SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. 


Among the sacraments which the Roman Catholic Church 
affirms, in addition to baptism and the eucharist, that of pen- 
ance has such a far-reaching significance that it appropriately 
comes under review in this connection. 

The authorative teaching of that Church, as set forth in the 
decrees and canons of the Council of Trent, represents that 
forgiveness of sins, which are committed after baptism, is ob- 





1 Cont. Haer. iv. 18. 3, 6. 2 Strom. vii. 6. 

8 John Wesley’s exclusion of a pious man in Georgia from the Lord’s table, 
on the ground of irregular baptism, belonged to the legal stage in his religious 
development, and was a piece of folly of which he afterwards heartily repented. 
(Journal, September, 1749). 


532 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


tained through the sacrament of penance; that for the valid 
execution of this sacrament contrition, confession, and satis- 
faction are required of the penitent, and the act of absolution 
on the part of the priest ; that even though contrition be per- 
fect, it does not secure remission apart from at least a desire 
for the sacrament; and that the utterance by the priest of the 
absolving sentence is a judicial act. The last point is thus 
worded: ‘ Although the absolution of the priest is the dis- 
pensation of another’s bounty, yet it is not a bare ministry 
only, whether of announcing the gospel or of declaring that 
sins are forgiven, but is after the manner of a judicial act, 
whereby sentence is pronounced by the priest as by a judge.”’ 

Against this theory of judicial absolution, viewed as one 
of the necessary conditions of forgiveness, the following ob- 
jections are to be urged: — 

1. The doctrine authorizes what, from the conditions of 
the case, must ordinarily be an act of presumption. A posi- 
tive declaration of forgiveness, where there is no knowledge 
whether forgiveness is possible, is surely an overstepping of 
the claims of truth and moderation. But knowledge of this 
kind is beyond the reach of the confessor. He has no nat- 
ural means of knowing whether the penitent cherishes that 
contrition of heart, or at least attrition, without which, accord- 
ing to the Tridentine decisions, he cannot be absolved. To 
bring in supernatural means, to assume that a revelation is 
always given to the officiating priest, whether he be a saint 
or a besotted sinner, is to predicate the sheerest magic. Be- 
ing thus without either natural or supernatural means to 
know certainly the state of the penitent’s heart, what right 
has the priest to say: “J absolve thee?” If the absolving 
sentence had to do only with the ecclesiastical relation of the 
penitent, it might be allowed to pass. But in Romish theory 
it reaches higher than this, and is assumed to be actually an 
instrument of absolution in the sight of God. Herein lies 
the stain of presumption. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 533 


2. The doctrine of judicial absolution involves a notion of 
the divine forgiveness which is artificial and derogatory to the 
divine character. In any worthy view of God it must be seen 
that the priest is too late with his absolving sentence. The 
very same contrition which can properly entitle the penitent 
to the supposed benefit of that sentence, that is, one that 
answers to the scriptural idea of true repentance, invites the 
divine clemency. It is next toa sacrilege against the benevo- 
lence of God to suppose that He will wait for the intervention 
of ecclesiastical machinery before inwardly assuming a favor- 
able attitude toward a sincere penitent. Such a conclusion 
puts the very nature of God under bondage to a creaturely 
formality transacted upon His footstool. But what more is 
divine forgiveness in its essence than this favoring inward 
attitude ? Is there anything in the universe that can stand 
against this, or even unite with it, in determining the real 
status of a soul in relation to the divine kingdom? The 
notion that the priest can get ahead of the movement of the 
divine mind and heart cannot rationally be entertained for a 
moment.! It is indeed conceivable that in this or that instance 
the priest might be commissioned to declare to the penitent 
the already existing fact of his forgiveness, though the New 
Testament indicates as a matter of fact, that the Holy Spirit 
is ready to fulfill that office by awakening the filial conscious- 
ness and shedding abroad the love of God in the heart. This 
merely declaratory office, however, is just what Romish dogma 
repudiates. To provide for a judicial sentence it enthrones 
technicality over the ethical nature of God. 

If it be assumed, as it is in the Tridentine decrees, that 


1“ To say of any soul that is filled with sorrow for its sins that it can remain 
unforgiven, or that its forgiveness can be delayed for some other reason, is to 
utter what is really a contradiction in terms—a contradiction as great as to 
speak of the vanishing of darkness without the approach of light, or of the 
earth becoming nearer to the sun without the sun becoming nearer to the 
earth.” (John Caird, University Sermons, p. 140.) 

35 


534 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


genuine contrition will always seek the absolving office of the 
priest, all that needs to be said is, that abundant facts utterly 
discredit the assumption. The real world gives the lie here 
to the speculations of the doctors. 

3. The tenet respecting zudictal absolution is discounten- 
anced by the facts of ecclesiastical history. It may be granted 
that an overgrowth of sacerdotalism appeared in the Church, 
and that a mist began to spread over the proper distinction 
between reconciliation with the Church and reconciliation 
with God, at a comparatively early date. Still it was a long 
time before sacerdotalism reached that height of assumption 
which is expressed in the Tridentine doctrine of a necessary 
judicial absolution by the mouth of the priest. In proof of 
this it will suffice to quote these facts: (1) In the fourth 
century the office of penitential presbyter, established in the 
preceding century, was abolished in the East. The historians, 
Socrates and Sozomen, in recording this event use statements 
which plainly indicate that for the time there was a lapse as 
respects any requirement of confession, since the one writer 
says that “ Everyone was left to his own conscience as regards 
participation in the sacred mysteries,’! and the other re- 
marks, that people were no longer deterred from committing 
sins through dread of “exposing them to the scrutiny of a 
severe judge.” * Now, this lapse in the practice of confession 
powerfully testifies to the truth that the motive of the prac- 
tice could not have been an apprehended necessity of the 
priestly absolution as a condition of forgiveness before God. 
We are reminded here, as we are in other connections, that 
confession of private sins was primarily imposed for the two- 
fold purpose of guarding the sacredness of the Christian 
mysteries and advising the penitent as to the proper satisfac- 
tions for his transgressions. (2) For many centuries abso- 
lution was administered, not in the form of a judicial sentence, 








1 Hist. Eccl. v. 19. 2 Hist. Eccl. vii. 16. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. 535 


but in that of a supplication, expressed in words like these: 
“May the omnipotent God absolve thee, and spare thee, and 
remit and blot out all thy sins.”! Roman Catholic scholars 
have acknowledged that up to the eleventh or twelfth century 
this was the current form of absolution.2 (3) Peter Lombard 
in the twelfth century, in a work which served as a handbook 
of theology through the scholastic era, distinctly denies the 
judicial function of the priest. Referring to God’s agency he 
says: “ He himself alone through Himself remits sins, who also 
purifies the soul from interior stain and releases from the 
debt of eternal death. But He has not conceded this to the 
priests, to whom, nevertheless, He has assigned the power 
of loosing and binding —that is, of showing men bound or 
loosed.” * His contemporary, Pullus, used equivalent words.’ 
In the conception of both the office of the priest was evi- 
dently declaratory, much like that of the Jewish priest to 
whom the healed leper presented himself. A stronger view 
may, indeed, have been partly current at that time, but the 
fact that representative theologians still in the twelfth century 
denied the theory of judicial absolution combines with other 
historical evidence to show that this theory for a long time 
was no part of the accredited faith of the Church, and was 
enthroned finally only as the result of an extreme develop- 
ment of sacerdotal assumption. 

4. The doctrine of judicial absolution has no proper war- 
rant in the tenor of New Testament teaching. From one 
end of the New Testament to the other not a single case is 
on record in which an apostle or his delegate undertook to for- 
give sins in the sense of cancelling guilt in the sight of God, 
or to retain them in the sense of giving permanency to guilt. 





1H. J. Schmitz, Die Bussbiicher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, pp. 
757,778. 

2 Amort, De Origine, Progressu, Valore, ac Fructu Indulgentiarum, Pars - 
§ 2, p. 3. 

§ Sent. IV. 18. 5, 6. 4 Sent. VI. 16. 


536 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


Paul, it is true, speaks of delivering over the Corinthian 
offender to Satan; but this, if not merely a rhetorical equiva- 
lent for expulsion from the Church, denotes the consignment 
of the transgressor to a special physical chastisement, a super- 
natural infliction upon the body in return for his grievous 
trespass. In either case no ground is afforded for imagining 
that the apostolic sentence determined the status of the cul- 
prit as condemned or forgiven in the sight of God. Nowhere 
does an apostle appear with a judicial sentence of absolution 
upon his lips. Nowhere is there any trace of a confessional 
in the New Testament; for, there is not the slightest need 
of concluding that the exhortation of James to a mutual con- 
fession of faults means the secret whispering of a penitent in 
the ear of a priest for the sake of getting his sentence of abso- 
lution. As was indicated in another connection, an inter- 
change of brotherly sympathy and a motive to prayer in each 
other’s behalf were the ends which James had in mind. 

This absence of any trace of judicial absolution in the ad- 
ministration of the apostles suggests, at the least, that the 
passages in the Gospels which speak of an apostolic function 
of binding and loosing, or of remitting and retaining sins, 
ought to be taken with those modifications which are dic- 
tated by a reasonable account of human limitations. As the 
apostles were not omniscient, and did not have the power to 
transform either the nature of man or of God, it was simply 
impossible for them to forgive sins in the eminent sense. 
Nor is there the slightest occasion to interpret the gospel 
passages in favor of such a faculty. Those passages, as is 
intimated by the context of Matt. xviii. 18, simply express, 
in striking form, the twofold fact that the apostles were en- 
dowed with full authority to administer government and dis- 
cipline in the Church, and might expect in the fulfillment of 
this lofty function the special aid of the Holy Spirit. They 


ee 





1 Matt. xvi. 19, xviii. 18; John xx. 23. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. $37 


were authorized to bind and to loose, to put on or to take off 
censures, to exclude or to receive, in connection with the 
visible Church ; and, moreover, could cherish the high confi- 
dence, that, in virtue of the Holy Spirit’s aid, what they 
should do in the visible sphere would be, in general, a reflex 
of that done in heaven, their exercise of indulgence or severity 
being made conformable to a divine discretion. To suppose 
the loosing or binding on earth by a human agent to precede 
or to condition that in heaven, the ecclesiastical to govern 
the essential, is to indulge in a beggarly anthropomorphism. 
The point of emphasis is the agreement of the two, and the 
special grace which should effect the agreement, or lift up 
the apostolic administration into conformity with the divine 
will. The apostolic act would be seconded or confirmed by 
God just because of its agreement with His foregoing judg- 
ment —that judgment that neither requires nor allows any 
temporal interval in its response to interior conditions. 

The language addressed by Christ to His apostles sets 
forth an ideal. No men less near to the ideal in holiness, 
spiritual wisdom, and guidance of the Holy Spirit than were 
the apostles can come as near as they did to the fulfillment 
of those words — that is, as near to making what is done in 
the visible Church a reflex of that which is done in heaven. 

The above exposition proceeds on the supposition that the 
words respecting binding and loosing, as also those on remit- 
ting and retaining, were addressed more directly and _par- 
ticularly to the apostles. If a broader application be given 
to them, they will of course be still less available for the sup- 
port of a high sacerdotal theory. Now the context preceding 
and following Matt. xviii. 18 suggests that the power of bind- 
ing and loosing therein mentioned was regarded as pertaining 
to the Christian brotherhood in general. Also in relation 
to John xx. 23, if we consult the parallel passage in Luke 
(xxiv. 33-36), we gain the impression that others than apos- 
tles were in the group to which the words on remitting and 


4 


536 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


retaining were addressed. In connection with either of the 
sentences under consideration, it remains to be proved that a 
prerogative of a set of officials, rather than the function of a 
brotherhood, was described. 

5. In its practical effect the confessional, with its attach- 
ment of priestly absolution, tends to devitalize the sense of 
direct personal relation to God, and to put in its place a sense 
of dependence upon ecclesiastical mechanism. The pardon 
of sins is transferred, so to speak, from a divine to an earthly 
court-room. The penitent comes, under ecclesiastical requi- 
sition, before a human official, instead of being led by the 
feeling of his spiritual necessity to a direct transaction with 
the God of holiness and love. In proportion as he thinks on 
the virtue of uncovering his sin to the former, he is tempted 
to slight the demand to make earnest suit to the latter for 
pardon. He thus forfeits in greater or less measure the spir- 
itual sensibility which comes from a near approach to God, 
and tends to the plane of a mechanical dealing with sin. 

So decided is the tendency of the scheme of sacramental 
absolution toward this mechanical dealing with sin that it 
has virtually been sanctioned in Roman Catholic theory. 
Eminent writers of that Church have not hesitated soberly 
to advocate the astounding proposition that there is no such 
necessity for thorough-going penitence and love toward God 
under the new dispensation as existed under the old, inas- 
much as the Christian sacrament comes in to make up the 
deficit. Distinguishing between contrition and the more 
superficial type of repentance known as attrition, they have 
maintained that the latter, plus the sacrament of penance, 
makes a man, in respect of his standing, as good as contrite.! 
This doctrine, it is true, has not been distinctly sanctioned 
by any ecumenical decree. But it has obtained large cur- 


1 Liguori, Theologia Moralis, Lib. VI. Tract. iv. n. 440-442; Laymann, 
Theol. Moral., Lib. V. Tract. vi. Cap. ii.; Sasse, Institutiones Theologicae de 
Sacramentis Ecclesiae, 1898, Vol, Il. pp. 121-160. 


CHURCH AND ORDINANCES. §39 


rency, and the extraordinary honors which have been be- 
stowed by recent popes upon such a pronounced advocate of 
it as Liguori amount to its virtual commendation by an 
authority that boasts of being above all correction. 

It must be said, moreover, that the institution of the con- 
fessional, as it exists in Roman Catholicism, tends to a mixture 
of burdensome legality and unethical laxity. The former ele- 
ment provokes to the latter. The slavery of detailed confes- 
sion, and of doing penance by rule, creates a motive to lighten 
the yoke by cutting down the estimate of various orders of 
offences, so as to exclude them from the rank of serious or 
mortal sins. Hence it has come about that a very consider- 
able amount of perverse casuistry has found its way into 
Roman Catholic works of “ moral theology,’ and maxims that 
are not fit to be exposed in the market-place have been sanc- 
tioned by authors who have commanded high esteem in the 
foremost circles of Romish orthodoxy.! This fact is not neces- 
sarily indicative of any corrupt disposition or intent; but it 
does constitute a striking comment on the entanglements of 
a system which imposes an exorbitant demand for weighing 
and measuring sins. 








1 See the author’s Church History, Modern Church, Part I. pp. 412-425, 
490-500. 


540 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE COMPLETING STAGES IN THE PROGRESS OF THE 
CHURCH OR KINGDOM OF GOD. 


I.— THE CONSUMMATION OF THE CHURCH MILITANT. 


Ir we take the Church in its ideal sense, as substantially 
equivalent to the kingdom of God among men, it is evidently 
appropriate to discuss the themes of eschatology under the 
point of view of great eras or consummations awaiting the 
Church. For, while the perfecting of the individual conditions 
that of the community, it is still true that the goal toward 
which Christianity looks is not simply a great number of 
perfect men, but a great number of perfect men perfectly as- 
sociated together, having a peculiar union with each other 
because of their oneness with Christ, a spiritual brotherhood, 
a holy and imperishable kingdom. To forecast, therefore, the 
movement toward the goal is to picture the great outlines in 
the destiny of the Church as well as the main crises in the 
perfecting of the individual. 

It is the peculiarity of the New Testament forecast that it 
strongly tends to mount above the earthly horizon into a 
sphere of glorified existence. As was noticed in the con- 
sideration of the subject of immortality,! the national and pre- 
liminary character of the Jewish religion naturally dictated 
that it should deal somewhat scantily with the supra-mundane 
unfoldment of the divine kingdom. Both the Old Testament 





1 Part III. Chapter II. Section ITI. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 541 


and the New are intensely prophetical ; both show the impress 
of a divinely enkindled optimism ; the great difference is that 
in the latter the light is upon a loftier horizon, illuminating a 
scene which is distinctly characterized as belonging to the 
region of incorruptibility and immortality. 

Transcendent as is the prospect held forth, it is still well 
approved to Christian faith, As Dorner has remarked, “A 
pregnant eschatological element lies in Christian faith, as such. 
Faith has experienced so much of Christ’s effectual working, 
that in presence of what is still lacking, however much this 
may be, it possesses not merely the hope, but the certainty, 
that the divine idea of the world will not remain simply a fair 
but impotent. picture of imagination.” } 

While the prophetic glance of the New Testament hastens 
towards the scenes of the heavenly life, it does not slight alto- 
gether the future of the Church in this world. Various sen- 
tences in the discourses of Christ and the messages of the 
apostles touch upon this theme. These may be classified as 
foreshadowing on the one hand progress and triumph, and on 
the other trial and conflict. 

In the former line of passages we have, first, the declaration 
that the “Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the 
whole world for a testimony unto all the nations.” 2 The 
natural sense of these words is not merely that a few individ- 
uals in the different nations shall have a fugitive opportunity 
to gain a superficial notion about the gracious purpose of God 
in Christ, but rather that the nations, the great bodies of men 
in the world, shall have something like a real chance to hear 
the gospel and to respond to its message. The universal 
preaching was designed to prepare for the consummation of 
the age. It is evident, however, that this design could be ful- 
filled only by a preaching which should penetrate in some good 
measure to the understanding of men. The words in question, 





1 System of Christian Doctrine, § 151. 2 Matt. xxiv. 14; Mark xiii. to, 


542 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


therefore, have the force of a prophecy of a great missionary 
progress of Christianity. Whatever measure those addressed 
may have applied to them, it is difficult to think that the 
Master put into them any smaller meaning than this. 

A second intimation on the side of progress and victory is 
contained in Paul’s declared confidence, that under the mar- 
vellous providence of God the ingathering of the Gentiles 
would be followed by a general conversion of the Jews. 
Speaking of his unbelieving nation he says: “If the casting 
away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the 
receiving of them be but life from the dead? ... I would not 
have you, brethren, ignorant of this mystery, that a hardening 
in part hath befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles 
be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved.’’! This, as being 
in the intense dialect of prophetical optimism, is not to be 
taken too precisely ; but it certainly indicates the faith of the 
apostle that in course of time the Jewish people would very 
generally accept the gospel message. 

It is to be noticed that Paul says nothing about a temporal 
restoration of the Jews. In his view all who possess the 
Christian faith are the true seed of Abraham. His emphatic 
repudiation of national barriers, and other artificial distinctions 
among Christians,? makes it utterly improbable that he looked 
for any such special mission of the Jews as those figure who 
suppose that they are to be restored to their own land, and 
to be honored with a sort of primacy in the work of evangeliz- 
ing the world. ‘The main resort of the interpreters who are 
enamored of this theory must be Old Testament prophecy. 
But they gain here a very unsubstantial foundation for their 
conclusion. From the theocratic point of view of the prophets, 
the Jewish people was the centre and heart of the kingdom 
of God upon earth. In their anticipations for that kingdom, 
therefore, they naturally pictured the fortunes of this. people, 


nt a Le ye 


1 Rom. xi. 15, 25, 26. 2 Gal. iii. 26-29. 





. 
) 


COMPLETING STAGES. $43 


coloring the scene according to their special environment and 
outlook. In the face of a Christian environment essentially 
the same hopes and expectations would prompt to a different 
order of expressions. A glorious fulfillment of the old proph- 
ecies —a union of fulfillment and transcendence — is found in 
the great facts that the Jewish people returned from the Baby- 
lonish captivity, furnished the household in which Christianity 
was born, as also the first agents by whom it was carried 
abroad in the world, and thus became a light to the Gentiles, 
an instrument of blessing on a vast scale to the human race. 
It is indeed possible that the force of historic associations may 
combine with special circumstances to effect a partial restora- 
tion of the Jews to Palestine. But it would still be entirely 
problematical whether this would promote rather than hinder 
the spiritual conquest of the world by Christianity. Those 
who desert a New Testament outlook for that of an outgrown 
dispensation are in a poor way to have their anticipations 
fulfilled. 

Another intimation of substantial victory awaiting the 
Church is contained in the passage of the Apocalypse which 
represents Satan as bound for a thousand years, and describes 
the joint reign of martyred saints and faithful witnesses with 
Christ in these terms: ‘‘And I saw thrones, and they sat 
upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw 
the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of 
Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not 
the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon 
their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived and reigned 
with Christ athousand years. The rest of the dead lived not 
until the thousand years should be finished. This is the first 
resurrection : over these the second death hath no power ; but 
they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with 
Him a thousand years.”’} 


1 Rev. xx. 4-6. 


$44 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


If one were to come to this passage, without prejudice either 
for or against the doctrine of the visible coming and reign 
of Christ, for a period prior to what the context pictures as 
the general resurrection, he would gather from it, we think, 
the following points: (1) The Revelator conceived that the 
Church, or the general body of believers, is to enjoy a period 
of relative security and ascendency in this world. This is 
symbolized by the binding of Satan for a thousand years —a 
figurative equivalent for the declaration that violent expres- 
sions of an anti-christian spirit shall be put in abeyance for a 
considerable term. (2) The Revelator conceived that at the 
beginning of this term certain classes of elect souls will be 
the subjects of a special resurrection, thus preceding the great 
mass of the dead, who are not to be raised till the end of the 
thousand years. That the first resurrection, of which the elect 
souls are the subjects, was intended to denote an investment 
with bodies appropriate to the eternal state, is implied by the 
fact that it is described as an anticipation of the general resur- 
rection, which in the concluding part of the chapter is associ- 
ated with the final judgment, and which, in early Christian 
thought, undoubtedly included a renewal of embodied life. 
Certainly it would make an ill-jointed combination to assert 
that the great majority of the dead are to be raised a thousand 
years after the resurrection of a special company has been 
consummated, if, in one instance, it is supposed that a literal 
resurrection was meant, and in the other something entirely 
different. (3) It is open to question whether the Revelator 
conceived that the reign of Christ, together with the subjects 
of the first resurrection, was to be a visible reign upon the 
earth. Not a word is said in the passage which unequivocally 
points to a visible manifestation upon an earthly theatre. It 
is true that in the verses which describe the events that im- 
mediately follow upon the millennial reign there is a reference 
to the camp of the saints, and to the beloved city, as being 
compassed about by the enemy; but all this is naturally 


COMPLETING STAGES. 545 


understood of believers who are still in the flesh, and so gives 
no earthly habitation either to Christ or to those who had 
come to share specially in His glory as subjects of the first 
resurrection. There being thus nothing in the description 
which positively requires the assumption of a visible earthly 
reign, that assumption is subject to the full force of all the 
objections which stand against it. In the first place it has to 
encounter the fact of contrariety to the general representation 
of the New Testament, wherein the coming of Christ is de- 
scribed as the immediate antecedent of the great crisis which 
is to usher in the eternal kingdom.! Then again it has to en- 
counter the import of Christ’s teaching, that His work would 
be better furthered by His presence in heaven than by visible 
association with His disciples upon earth, and that the energy 
of the Holy Spirit and the word of testimony are to be the 
means of spiritual conquest. These grounds of objection, it is 
true, will not appear inconsistent with interpreting the passage 
under consideration in the literal millenarian sense, in case 
one is pleased to regard its author as going counter to the 
trend of New Testament teaching. But this supposition of 
course cancels the dogmatic value of the passage. The pos- 
sible, or even probable, sense of a verse or two makes no suit- 
able dogmatic basis in face of a contrary tenor in prominent 
lines of New Testament representation. Authority must, 
therefore, be declared to be decidedly wanting for the mille- 
narian doctrine of a visible earthly reign, whatever interpreta- 
tion be put upon the Revelator’s language. As is remarked 
in a recent treatise on eschatology: “In all other writers of 
the New Testament this doctrine is not only ignored, but 
its acceptance is made impossible in their definite doctrinal 
systems of the last things, for in these the second advent and 
the last judgment synchronize. Thus the millennium, or the 
reign of Christ for one thousand years on the present earth, 


1 Matt. xxiv. 29-31, xxv. 31-33; 1 Thess. iv. 16-18; 1 Cor. xv. 23, 24. 


548 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


observe that very largely in its forecast of the fortunes of the 
Church militant time measures are not closely regarded. As 
is the case with the larger part of prophecy, the stress falls 
rather upon the logical sequence, the movement toward the 
providential goal, than upon the temporal intervals. The 
apostles were well assured of the goal, and of the general 
tenor of the antecedents through which it must be reached. 
As respects the times of fulfillment they had no definite fore- 
sight, and could only cherish the general attitude of expec- 
tancy which earnest longing for the great consummation 
naturally begets, and which it seems to have been the will 
of Christ that His followers should cherish, as an incitement 
to fidelity and hope, till the day of His appearing. Most of 
the apostolic references indicate an apprehension that the 
Christian age would run a speedy course. We learn, how- 
ever, that ere long account began to be taken in Christian 
circles of the principle that a day with the Lord is as a thou- 
sand years, and a thousand years as one day. 

In the condensed narrative, which is given in the Gospels, 
of Christ’s discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem and the 
closing of the dispensation, it may seem to be implied that 
these events were to occur in close conjunction, and both 
alike were to fall within the limits of the generation then 
living. But it is not improbable that in the fragmentary 
report of the discourse its original perspective has been some- 
what marred. The same Christ who foresaw truly the speedy 
destruction of Jerusalem, who emphasized the method of 
gradual unfoldment as characteristic of the kingdom,? and 
who taught unmistakably, in the parables of the vineyard and 
the marriage supper of the king’s son, that, after the day of 
vengeance had come upon the Jews, the great spiritual trust 
which they had borne in the world should pass over to the 
Gentiles,? cannot consistently be regarded as placing the con- 


12 Pet. iii. 8. 2 Matt. xiii. 31-33; Mark iv. 26-32. 
8 Matt. xxi. 33-46; Mark xii. 1-12; Luke xx. g-18; Matt. xxii. 1-7. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 549 


summation of earthly history so close to the fall of the fated 
city. Supposing that in His discourse the destruction of 
Jerusalem was taken as typical or suggestive of the end of 
the world, and that He passed rather abruptly from the one 
to the other, we can easily conceive how in the report of His 
words a closer temporal connection may have been given to 
the two events than belonged to them in His thought. 

It may perhaps be suggested that interpretation will be 
facilitated by predicating only one event in this connection, 
rather than two, and identifying that one event with the 
coming of Christ in the visitation of judgment upon Jerusa- 
lem. In response to this suggestion it is to be granted, in- 
asmuch as Christ deemed it appropriate to assume a very 
intimate connection between the kingdom of God and His 
own person, that He could consistently identify a triumph of 
the kingdom with His own triumph, and in figurative lan- 
guage describe it as a coming of the Son of Man, a manifes- 
tation and demonstration of His victorious life and activity 
beyond His apparent defeat through death. A spiritual out- 
burst like that of Pentecost, or a great judgment like that 
which sealed the fate of Jerusalem, as it marked a signal era 
in the progress of the kingdom, showed forth Christ as the 
living head of the kingdom, and could be accounted, in a sense, 
His coming or self-manifestation. Certain sentences in the 
Gospels are perhaps most fittingly construed when their 
reference to Christ’s coming is taken in this sense.) Some 
recent exegetes are of the opinion that the same principle of 
interpretation can be applied to the whole content of the 
eschatological discourse in Matt. xxiv. and Mark xiii. The 
outlook in these chapters, they claim, does not reach beyond 
the fall of Jerusalem, so that there is no occasion to assume 
any disparity between Christ's meaning and the report of the 
evangelists. But this way of eliminating stones of stumbling 





36 1 Matt. x. 23, xvi. 28; Mark ix. 1; Luke ix, 27. 


550 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


is not well adapted to give entire satisfaction. It is difficult, 
for one thing, to suppose that Christ’s declaration of igno- 
rance respecting the “day and the hour” had reference to 
an event which was described as certain to occur within the 
existing generation. Prophecy was coming to close quarters 
in assuming to fix even the generation within which a great 
crisis should occur. Such exactness and precision as the 
actual naming of the day and the hour seem to have been 
too remote from the circle of reasonable requirement to elicit 
naturally any mention. A superior congruity is therefore 
gained for Christ’s solemn asseveration of the impossibility of 
giving a temporal location to the coming event, if this assev- 
eration is regarded as applying toa greater and remoter crisis 
than the impending fall of Jerusalem, the phrase “day and 
hour”’ being used only as a more vivid expression for the 
unknown future time. Moreover, it is to be reckoned im- 
probable that some of the reported words of Christ, notably 
those in Matt. xxiv. 29-31 and Mark xili. 24—27, should have 
been meant to picture anything less than the end of the dis- 
pensation. Especially improbable is it that those who penned 
the words gave to them a significance falling short of this. 
The Gospels show that the primitive disciples were slow of 
heart to understand the kingdom on the side of its spiritual 
significance. Other parts of the New Testament, as well as 
the Gospels, evince that the apocalyptic conception of 
Christ’s second coming was prominent in the minds of the 
disciples in the early days of Christianity. Consequently it 
looks like a doubtful refinement upon the probable position 
of the gospel writers to exclude that conception from the 
basis of the reports contained in the passages under review.! 
On the whole, we consider that we choose the path of least 
difficulty and greatest probability when we conclude that 





1 Compare J. A. Beet, The Last Things, third edition, p. 50; G. B. Stevens, 
Theology of the New Testament, pp. 158-162. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 51 


the reports of the evangelists in this connection do not 
fully reproduce the order and perspective of the original 
discourse. 


Il.—TwHer Lirt AFTER DEATH IN ITS MORE IMMEDIATE 
CONDITIONS. 


In the dramatic representation which the New Testament 
gives of the future, the second coming of Christ and the resur- 
rection follow upon the scene which mirrors the fortunes of 
the Church militant. Very scanty consideration is accorded 
to the state of the dead in the interval preceding these events. 
In explanation of this fact two prominent reasons may be 
urged. On the one hand, the absence of any definite time 
measure of the interval between the ascension of Christ and 
His return, as it left the apostles free to think of that interval 
as very brief, naturally limited the occasion and the disposi- 
tion to make much account of the experiences which might 
be included therein. On the other hand, a practical spirit 
could not be indifferent to the truth that the issues of eternity 
vastly outweigh those of any portion of time, and that conse- 
quently the question of paramount importance is not, what 
does earthly conduct prepare for a man in any limited portion 
of the hereafter? but rather, how does it affect his eternal 
destiny? In giving supremacy to the practical point of view 
the New Testament could not do otherwise than emphasize 
the seriousness of the life in this world by associating it 
closely with the immeasurable interests of eternity. 

The latter of these two reasons abides in undiminished 
force. The practical man will ever regard the result of con- 
duct and character upon the final destiny as the matter of 
foremost personal concern. But it is obviously different as re- 
spects the former reason. As century is added to century, and 
the number of those in the region of the dead becomes many 
times greater than that of the living upon the earth, their life 


552 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


in that region for a prolonged age, however subordinate its 
import may be to that of the eternal state, acquires un- 
doubtedly very large significance. The conscious life of in- 
numerable millions of beings for an extended period cannot 
be reckoned a matter of small account. 

We say conscious life, for the doctrine of the sleep of the 
dead prior to the resurrection violates the clear tenor of 
the biblical teaching. Not to mention the pregnant declara- 
tion of Christ that God is the God of the living and not of 
the dead, the continuance of conscious existence is implied in 
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in the appearance 
of Moses and Elijah upon the mount of transfiguration, in the 
assurance to the dying thief that he should enter paradise on 
the day of the crucifixion, in the prayer of the martyred 
Stephen that the Lord would receive his spirit, in the expec- 
tation of Paul that departure from this life would make him 
present with Christ, in the representation of Peter respecting 
Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison, and in John’s vision 
of the souls of those who had been slain for their confession of 
Christ, and who appear to have been still waiting for the resur- 
rection.! Since no natural interpretation can be given to these 
texts on the supposition of non-existence or unconsciousness 
after death, they greatly outweigh such sentences as speak of 
death as an entrance into silence and inaction ;? for such can 
easily be explained as rhetorical descriptions of disappearance 
from the scene of visible activity, a gliding away from the 
bustling life of earthly communities. 

The fact of conscious existence in the period immediately 
subsequent to death signifies necessarily that this is a period 
of at least partial awards. Proper consciousness precludes a 
neutral state. Moreover, the New Testament references 


1 Matt. xxii. 32; Luke xvi. 19-31; Mark ix. 4; Luke xxiii. 43; Acts vii. 
59; 2 Cor. v. 8; Phil. i. 21-23; 1 Pet. ili. 19; Rev. vi. gQ-11. See also 1 Thess. 
be Cage 2) ga oe ge 

2 Ps. vi. 5, cxv. 17; Dan. xii. 2; 1 Cor. xv. 51; 1 Thess. iv. 14, v. 10. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 553 


which imply consciousness indicate for the most part a posi- 
tive realization either of felicity or of pain. At the same time, 
the association which is given to the resurrection and the judg- 
ment, with the bestowment of reward and retribution, is cer- 
tainly fitted to convey the impression that neither reward nor 
retribution is rendered in full measure immediately after 
death. 

Beyond these specifications little can be said, on the basis 
of any distinct authority, respecting the initial stage of exis- 
tence beyond this life, or the intermediate state as it is com- 
monly designated. The definiteness which the subject has 
attained in the Roman Catholic system is due to the trans- 
ference of a cluster of medizval fancies into the sphere of 
doctrine. To those who reject the infallibility of the Church, 
the traditional Roman Catholic teaching about purgatory, and 
the assumed prerogative of the pope to hasten the progress 
of souls through its tortures by the grant of indulgences, will 
not appear to have any proper warrant in the canonical Scrip- 
tures.! The assumption on which this teaching is founded, 
namely, that when sin is forgiven a part of the penalty still 
remains, and must be discharged by some form of penance or 
be covered by an ecclesiastical grant, as has already been in- 
dicated, is decidedly anti-Pauline; and it may be added that 
it is no less contradictory of the attitude toward repentant 
sinners which the language of Christ ascribes to the heavenly 
Father. As for the pope’s alleged jurisdiction over the inter- 
mediate realm, it runs into the height of absurdity to suppose 
that an earthly sinner, who needs to look well to his own sal- 
vation, has been intrusted with any oversight or responsibility 
in relation to that measureless world of spirits. For this pre- 
posterous assumption a very poor compensation is offered by 
distinguishing a few among the dead as patrons of believers 


1 Bellarmin cites for the doctrine of purgatory, Matt. v. 22, 25, 26; Luke 
xii. §8, 59, xvi. 9, xxiii. 42; Acts ii. 24; 1 Cor. iii. 15, xv. 29; Phil. ii. 10; 
2 Maccabees xii. 


554 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


upon earth, and predicating a radical dependence of the latter 
upon the former, which dependence is to be expressed in 
prayers and acts of homage. If the one item makes the dead 
absurdly dependent upon an earthly official, the other assumes 
for the living an exaggerated dependence upon the dead, and 
shadows the privilege of more direct access to God through 
the one perfect mediator, Christ Jesus. That the departed 
remember the living, and blend with their ascriptions to God 
acceptable prayers for those upon the field of earthly conflict, 
may be true; but it by no means follows, because prayers of 
saints to God have worth, that, therefore, prayers to saints can 
fulfill any useful office. 

A speculation respecting the intermediate state, which has 
been favored by a number of Protestant theologians, deserves 
a passing notice. As phrased by Martensen, it runs thus: 
“In comparison with the present state it must be said of the 
departed, that they are in a condition of rest, a condition of 
passivity, that they are in the night in which no man can 
work. Their realm is not a realm of deeds and works, for the 
outward conditions under which deeds and works can be ac- 
complished are not present. Nevertheless they live a deep 
spiritual life; for the realm of the dead is the realm of inward- 
ness, the realm of the still deep reflection upon self, a realm 
of recollection in the full sense of the word, in the sense that 
the soul enters here into its own interior, retreats to that which 
is the ground of its life, the true interior of all being.”! An 
element of truth may belong to this representation, but there 
is no certain means of determining how far it gives a true 
picture of the state and experience of souls. On the one 
hand, the stress which is laid in the Scriptures upon the resur- 
rection may be regarded as implying that the embodied exis- 
tence is necessary to the highest personal and community life ; 
on the other hand, however, an energetic activity is ascribed 


1 Dogmatik, § 276. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 555 


to angels, and the Scriptures fail to give us positive assurance 
that they do not fall under the category of purely spiritual 
beings. 

A question of larger import than the one just considered is 
that which relates to the experience of progressive sanctifica- 
tion and to the possibility of distinct moral transitions in the 
intermediate state. 

The argument for the negative side is comprised in these 
facts: (1) Throughout the New Testament men are addressed 
as if the present were the time of decision, and destiny de- 
pended upon the use made of its opportunities! (2) Judg- 
ment is represented to be based on conduct in this life? 
(3) Toa very large extent Christian conviction through the 
centuries has been in favor of the conclusion that the es- 
sential lot of all men is fixed this side the border of the other 
world. 

The principal considerations which may be urged in favor 
of the supposition that progressive sanctification and distinct 
moral transitions may have place in tne intermediate state are 
the following :— 

1. So great is the tendency of conduct to fashion and to fix 
character, that in any practical address the present must be 
emphasized as the time of decision upon coming destiny. The 
New Testament as a practical book, addressing those to whom 
the gospel message has come, and who have understandings 
sufficiently matured to respond to the message, would naturally 
. put the whole stress upon present opportunity, even if for 
some human beings differently circumstanced it should be the 
purpose of God to provide means of spiritual education and 
improvement in the interim between death and the close of 
the dispensation. Moreover, the lack of any definite time 


1 Matt. v. 29, 30, xviii. 8, 9, xxiv. 42, 44; Mark ix. 42-48, xiii. 33-37; Luke 
xiii. 23-30, xvi. 27-31; John iii. 36, ix. 4; Heb. ii. 1-3. 

2 Matt. xxv. 41-45; 2 Cor. v. 10; 1 Thess. i. 5-10; Heb. ix. 27; Rev. xxii. 
II, 12. 


556 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


measure in the New Testament for the intermediate state, and 
the apostolic anticipation of the speedy coming of Christ, 
served to decrease to some extent the occasion for regarding 
aught but the earthly theatre of opportunity. 

2. Peter’s reference to the preaching of Christ, apparently 
in the interval between His death and resurrection, though 
somewhat obscure and enigmatic, is most naturally inter- 
preted as implying a presentation of the gospel message to 
some portion of the dead.' Of the effect of this preaching, 
it is true, no record is given. 

3. Great multitudes of men who may be regarded as pos- 
sessing the root of Christian character do not appear to have 
been completely sanctified before death. Therefore, since 
death cannot be regarded as transforming man’s spiritual 
nature, the reason of the case seems to dictate that the com- 
pletion of sanctification must be effected by a process cover- 
ing a greater or less interval. At least, no rational warrant 
can be found for the supposition that multitudes, whom the 
providence and grace of God fail to bring to entire holiness 
during the years of earthly life, encounter means of complete 
spiritual transformation the moment they pass out of this 
life. | 

4. A considerable fraction of the race dies before the dawn 
of moral experience. Another fraction dies after such a scanty 
experience that character cannot be regarded as having been 
given a decisive bent either toward good or evil by personal 
conduct. This applies both to the young and to those of - 
maturer years who have had very inferior opportunities for 
religious knowledge and training. Now, it will not be denied 
that each one in all this immense aggregate of human beings, 
if located for a sufficient interval on the theatre of earthly 
opportunity, would need to make a distinct personal decision 
in order to become a proper subject of Christ’s kingdom, and 


1; Pet. iii. 18-20, iv. 6. See Part IV. Chapter II. Section I. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 557 


would be so free in that decision that the issue would be truly 
contingent. A real or contingent choice would lie before every- 
one of them in this world. What determines that it should 
not be their prerogative, or unavoidable experience, in the in- 
termediate state? If it be said that the power of God perfects 
their spiritual natures on the instant, then a sweeping appli- 
cation is given to the doctrine of irresistible grace, and the 
inference is justified that for a large fraction of the race the 
fact of death is equivalent to predestination unto eternal life. 
If, on the other hand, it is supposed that the grace necessary, 
in conjunction with a possible use of freedom, for perfecting 
any of those in the classes under consideration is withheld by 
God, then the genuineness of His wish that they should be 
saved is impeached, and place is given to a conception which 
is essentially that of unconditional reprobation. 

5. The advocate of freedom in the Arminian sense needs 
to remind himself of two things in this connection, First, he 
needs to note that a negative condition of salvation, such as 
is the mere willingness of God to save, guarantees the salva. 
tion of no one, and in no wise displaces the demand for a per- 
sonal choice, which, in the case of immature and untried moral 
agents, whose character has not been precipitated by acting 
under any clear light of truth, must be regarded as containing 
an element of contingency. Secondly, he should observe that 
it has an appearance of inconsistency to repudiate Augustinian 
or Calvinistic postulates for this life while giving them a vast 
application to the life beyond the grave. The statement that 
God could not have kept Adam from falling, without violence 
to his moral constitution, harmonizes ill with the supposition 
that He can cancel on the instant all contingency in the 
spiritual estate of millions of souls who are quite as immature 
as was Adam when he came from the Creator’s hand, not to 
speak of the millions whose condition approximates to this 
description. Beyond all dispute, it makes a noticeable dis- 
junction in thought to regard men as autonomous personalities 


558 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


in this world, and then to relegate them without distinction, 
just across the border of this world, to the character of goods 
which determine nothing as to where they shall be stored. 

That the difficulty noted is not met by quoting the oft- 
repeated and indubitable maxim about men being judged ac- 
cording to the light enjoyed is perfectly obvious. The question 
concerns not merely a standard of judgment, but a method of 
bringing into the positive possession of holy character. The 
fact that a man is not irremediably condemned in consideration 
of the very slight advantages falling to his lot, involves no 
denial that it is necessary te reckon him still a subject for an 
educative and perfecting process, and that his will is not 
so entirely a certain factor in this process as to leave no shade 
of doubt about the outcome. 

A theory which assumes that Arminianism holds good for 
two worlds, and not for one only, which makes moral strenu- 
ousness anywhere and everywhere a condition of established 
citizenship in the divine kingdom, and which gives no promise 
to those who harden their hearts against the ample message 
of grace in the present, to whatever charge it may be exposed, 
cannot be accused of laxity. It is a stringent theory. Doubt- 
less it can be given an abusive application ; and so may the 
opposing theory. The one is as well-guarded in this respect 
as the other. To extend the time-limit for specially con- 
ditioned souls affords naturally no greater occasion for unwar- 
rantable expectations than does a lowering of the standard of 
requirement for ultimate salvation. That a strong motive to 
lower the standard operates, in connection with the theory 
of a total exclusion of moral transitions from the sphere of 
the future life, will not be denied by one who makes a careful] 
survey of the religious world. 

Our consciousness of the superficiality and unfairness, with 
which the considerations which make for the possibility of 
moral transitions in the intermediate state have often been 
treated, has inclined us to give to this side of the subject the 


COMPLETING STAGES. 559 


larger space. It would quite mistake our meaning, however, 
to suppose that we account this point of view of any great 
practical significance. The appropriate course for the Chris- 
tian worker is open to no rational doubt, whether we consult 
the testimony of reason, of experience, or of revelation. Pene- 
trated with the conviction that the remedial system of the 
gospel ought to be brought to bear upon every human life at 
the earliest possible point, in order that the stifling effect 
of sinful indulgence upon the spiritual sensibilities may be 
forestalled, he ought to urge divine invitations and warnings 
with as much earnestness as would naturally inspire his ad- 
dress if he should see in the decisions of the hour foreshadow- 
ings of eternal destinies. New Testament preaching must 
in all reason be regarded as model preaching. The office of 
preaching is not to project theories about those who do not 
have opportunities in this world, but rather to bring to men 
who do have opportunities a vital sense of the greatness of 
offered privilege and the seriousness of unavoidable respon- 
sibility. 


IlI.—- THe SrEconp ADVENT AND THE RESURRECTION, 


The references of the New Testament to the geography of 
the other world need in large part to be construed as figura- 
tive or accommodated expressions. There is, therefore, very 
little occasion to speak of an intermediate place. But it is 
not altogether feasible to dispense with a reference to an zw- 
termediate state. This phrase has insinuated itself into the 
preceding discussion. That some measure of propriety be- 
longs to its use must be admitted by one who supposes a time 
element to enter into the moral cleansing and perfecting of 
souls beyond the borders of this life. The period of the pro- 
cess of perfecting would have from this point of view more 
or less of the character of an intermediate state. Something 


560 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


may also be conceded to the thought, that for the complete 
realization of the heavenly estate the perfecting of the whole 
body of the redeemed is the necessary antecedent, so that any 
measure of fruition preceding this supreme consummation 
must have in some degree the character of a preliminary or 
intermediate stage. 

If the second coming of Christ, with its accompaniment of 
the resurrection from the dead, is to be associated with a dis- 
tinct era, then evidently a very intelligible ground for affirm- 
ing an intermediate state is presented, since the embodied 
life, conceived to be introduced by the resurrection, must in 
some respects be distinguished from the condition preceding. 
Now, to assume a distinct era for the advent and the related 
events is to follow the natural sense of numerous texts.! 
Even a writer so much disposed as was John to transport into 
a present application the terms descriptive of future realities 
—such as resurrection, judgment, and eternal life — has given 
indications that he entertained the idea of a distinct era for 
the advent and the resurrection.2, An apparent exception to 
this way of thinking on the part of Paul, as will be shown 
presently, is not so certainly shut up to one interpretation as 
to count for very much in an exposition of the apostolic 
standpoint. 

To rule out, therefore, the conception of an extraordinary 
epoch of manifestation and consummation, we should need to 
take many New Testament texts much as we do the Old 
Testament references to Sheol, that is, as rather an incidental 
employment of the framework of current eschatological think- 
ing than as having specifically the force of revelation. On 
rational grounds it is doubtless possible to say somewhat in 
justification of the supposition that the investment with the 
new body occurs immediately after death. Still, it strikes 


1 Matt. xxiv. 30, xxv. 31; Mark xiii. 26; Luke xxi. 27; Acts i. 11; 1 Thess. 
iv. 16; 2 Thess. i. 7, 10; Heb. ix. 28; Rev. i. 7. 
2 John vy, 28, 29, vi. 39, 40, 44, 54, xi. 24, xii. 48, xiv. 3, xxi. 22; 1 John ii. 28. 


COMPLETING STAGES. S61 


us that it is somewhat venturesome, in consideration of our 
ignorance, to so far abridge the natural import of the New 
Testament language as to shut out or ignore the idea of a 
special era. 

Not a few interpreters have thought it necessary to em- 
phasize the idea that the second advent is to be a visible com- 
ing, and have spoken as though it must be within the field 
of the natural vision of the dwellers upon the face of the 
earth. But this is pushing pictorial representation into a 
needless excess of literalism. The point of emphasis in the 
New Testament predictions is the certainty of the personal 
manifestation of Christ to His disciples and to the race gen- 
erally. All are to apprehend His presence, and to know that 
the one revealed in glory and might is the same as He who 
was born of Mary and suffered under Pontius Pilate. Even 
the most detailed of the descriptions, such as that of Paul to 
the Thessalonians,! are not required to be taken as meaning 
anything more than this. It is to be noticed that the apostle 
here does not so much as say that Christ is to set foot upon 
the earth. He is to descend, indeed; but His disciples are to 
be caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air —a rhetori- 
cal expression which probably was not designed to be exact 
any more than are our words when we speak of the translation 
of men into the skies. The whole description, when stripped 
of its imaginative coloring, reduces to the truth of the certain 
manifestation of Christ and the certain welcome by Him of all 
His followers into the heavenly kingdom. Of course it is 
very appropriate to assist our apprehension of the second 
advent by imaginative picturings; but it shows poor discre- 
tion to attempt to secure for the domain of dogmatic teaching 
that which belongs to the sphere of religious imagination. 


On the subject of the resurrection we have also some forms 


1; Thess. iv, 16-18. 


562 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


of expression which belong not so much to exact doctrinal dis- 
course as to the pictorial art of the religious imagination. The 
dogmatic trend of the scriptural representations is comprised 
mainly in these particulars: (1) Souls in the ultimate stage 
of man’s existence are to be invested with bodies ; (2) these 
bodies are to be so far different from those of the present as 
to be suitable to the heavenly and incorruptible life; (3) the 
resurrection, or investment with bodies, is to take place 
generally at the era of the second advent; (4) nature, in 
some part at least, is to undergo a renewing or transfigur- 
ation analogous to that wrought in man’s corporeal being. 
Of these items the third and the fourth, though clearly enough 
suggested by the language of the apostolic writings, do not 
need to receive the same emphasis as the two preceding. 

That the resurrection has a reference to the body is not 
only implied by the general cast of the texts in which it is 
mentioned,! but is unequivocally taught in the most detailed 
exposition of the theme which is contained in the New Tes- 
tament.? It is true that the word “resurrection ” is used occa- 
sionally in a spiritual sense ;? but this is on account of the 
aptness of the physical transformation to figure that which is 
wrought in the spiritual nature. Only an arbitrary exegesis 
can reduce the scriptural teaching to a mere assertion either of 
spiritual transformation or of the immortality of the soul. 

As certainly as the New Testament teaches a bodily resur- 
rection, it distinguishes between the qualities of the future 
body and that of the present. Christ’s exclusion of the mar- 
riage relation, and comparison of the state of risen saints to 
that of angels in heaven, involve such a distinction. Paul 
more directly and explicitly affirms the distinction in these 
sentences: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. ... It is 


1 John v. 28, 29, vi. 44; Acts xxiv. 15; 1 Thess. iv. 14-16; Rev. xx. 13. 
2 Cor. xv. Compare Phil. iii. 21. 
®Rom. vi. 4, §; Eph. v. 14; Col. ii, 12, 13. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 563 


sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown 
in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it 
is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised 
a spiritual body.’’! The word “spiritual” here is evidently 
used in a relative sense. It puts the resurrection body in 
contrast with the grossness of flesh and blood in the earthly 
body, and indicates that it is to be a suitable partner or instru- 
ment of the glorified spirit. 

In former times it was commonly thought necessary to 
affirm a material identity between the future body and that 
of the present. But Paul, while he intimates that there is 
some bond of connection between the one and the other, is far 
from affirming a material identity.2. The only ground for in- 
ferring this identity is the association of the resurrection with 
the grave, and this is by no means of compelling force. The 
earth is the common grave of the race. In death men univer- 
sally give back their bodies to the mass of physical nature. 
Suppose, then, that one should wish to express in vivid rhetori- 
cal phrase the fact that out of the mass of physical nature the 
constituents of new bodies will be taken through the marvel- 
lous working of God’s power; what better could he do than to 
speak of the grave as yielding up its dead? This is the fitting 
equivalent in popular discourse for the declaration that physi- 
cal nature which receives the old body is to be the source of 
the new and far more perfect body which is forever to mirror 
the glory of the indwelling spirit. In reconstituting man’s 
physical being material identity is of no consequence whatever. 
One set of molecules is just as good as another of the same 
order. It is therefore enormously improbable that God has 
devised an intricate and far-reaching economy for conserving 
from each body the quantity of matter necessary for physical 
perfection, and has undertaken to gather together in the day 
of the resurrection the scattered particles which are comprised 


11 Cor. xv. 42-44, 50. 21 Cor. xv. 35-38. 


564 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


in this quantity. Sameness of type, resulting from the opera- 
tion of the same organizing principle, provides for the proper 
identity of the body throughout the changes of earthly life; 
and there is no occasion to suppose any further basis of iden- 
tity in the future state. 

Reference was made to an apparent exception to the cus- 
tomary New Testament association of the resurrection with a 
distinct era. Taken by itself Paul’s language in 2 Cor. v. 1-5 
might be regarded as indicative of a belief that the time of the 
individual’s departure from the earth is the time of his invest- 
ment with a heavenly corporeity. But more explicit state- 
ments show that the apostle conceived of the resurrection as 
a distinct future crisis for men collectively.1. Some inter- 
preters, it is true, have concluded that between the writing of 
First and Second Corinthians Paul changed his view. But 
when either epistle was written the apostle was far along in 
his theological development. Moreover, only a few months 
apparently intervened between the composition of the first 
epistle to the church at Corinth and the second. It is to be 
esteemed, therefore, much more likely that Paul in 2 Cor. v. 
1—5 rhetorically ignored, in his personal anticipation, the inter- 
val between death and resurrection, than that he meant to 
give expression to a pronounced disagreement with the com- 
munication addressed so shortly before to the Corinthians. 
Very possibly Paul may have shifted his point of view some- 
what in his later days. As between the apocalyptic concep- 
tion, with its stress upon the exterior crisis in the progress of 
the kingdom, and the more spiritual conception wherein the 
principal emphasis falls upon inward fellowship with God 
through Christ, he may have inclined to the latter. Never- 
theless, it requires more evidence than is available to make 
credible the supposition that he consciously rejected, at any 
time, the apocalyptic order of representation. The analogy of 


1; Thess. iv. 16,17; 1 Cor. xv. 23, 51, 52. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 565 


the Johannine writings, which, with all their spiritual and ideal- 
izing tendency, give still a place to the apocalyptic idea, argues 
against Paul’s renunciation of the same. Again, it is notice- 
able that in Phil. iii, 20, 21, Paul associates the exercise of 
Christ's resurrection power with His future coming from 
heaven. Still further, the words in 2 Tim. ii, 18, implying 
as they do that the resurrection belongs under the category 
of a future event, are not fully reconcilable with the notion 
that for each individual it is coincident with death. 

A notion, having a point of kinship with the revised concep- 
tion of the resurrection attributed to Paul, is that which sup- 
poses within the present body one of more subtle essence, 
and regards the latter as being disengaged at death from the 
former. The difficulty with this view is a total lack of proof, 
both in the sphere of science and of Scripture. 

As to the transformation of nature we have this declaration 
of Paul: “The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for 
the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was sub- 
jected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him 
who subjected it, in hope that also the creation itself shall be 
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty 
of the glory of the children of God.”’! A like consummation 
is pictured in John’s comprehensive words: “I saw a new 
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first 
earth are passed away; and the sea is no more.”? To at- 
tempt an exact interpretation of these passages would be a 
profitless venture. Probably neither Paul nor John had any 
information to give beyond the general idea of a natural sys- 
tem so constituted as to be a suitable theatre for the subjects 
of the resurrection; and to this much consistent thinking 
offers no objection. 

It has often been noticed that Paul says nothing in his 
epistles about the resurrection of the wicked. This may be 


1 Rom. viii. 19-21. 2 Rev. xxi. 1. Compare Ps. cii. 26; Isa. xxxiv. 4, li. 6, Ixv. 17, 18 


87 


566 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


in large part explained by the consideration that the epistles 
were addressed to those who, in the judgment of charity, 
were to be counted true disciples of Christ, and the subject of 
the resurrection was considered only in such points of view 
as might be of immediate interest to them. A fact less easily 
disposed of is the representation of the resurrection as an ob- 
ject of earnest pursuit, a prize to be won in the way of fidelity 
and devotion to Christ.1 On the whole, the Epistles of Paul 
leave room for doubt as to his belief in the resurrection of the 
wicked. It is only in the Book of Acts that he appears on 
record as holding that there-is to be a resurrection both of the 
just and the unjust.” 


IV.— THE JUDGMENT. 


In the scriptural representation this event tollows immedi- 
ately upon the resurrection, is consummated by Christ in per- 
son, and is co-extensive with the race.*? It is portrayed with 
dramatic vividness and intensity. The most solemn strains 
of poetry and the most graphic delineations of the artist have 
not transcended the plane of the biblical] description. 

The great truth lodged in the total representation of the 
judgment is the certain rectification of all disparity between 
desert and fortune, the certain and unqualified consummation 
of the judicial process which is going on in the world. Weare 
notified that the work of sifting out the evil is to be carried 
to entire completion, that whatever is unfit for the spiritual 
and eternal kingdom of Christ is to be separated so that this 
kingdom shall appear without spot or blemish. 


1 Phil. iii. 11. 

2 Acts xxiv. 15. Compare John v. 28, 29; Rev. xx. 11-15. 

3 Matt. xi. 24, xiii. 30, 39, 49, xvi. 27, xxv. 31-46; John v. 22-29, xii. 48; 
Acts x. 42, xvii. 31; 2 Cor. v.10; 2 Thess.i. 7-10; 2 Tim. iv. 1; 2 Pet. ii. 1-9, 
iii. 10-13; Rev. xx. 11-15. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 567 


These, in our view, are the dogmatic elements which are 
comprised in the account of the judgment as given in the New 
Testament. In this account, as is wont to be the case with 
vivid prophetical picturing, the culmination is put for the 
whole process. A more prosaic and leisurely contemplation 
has to pay regard to antecedent stages of judgment. It must 
include a reference to the witness of the Holy Spirit as an 
inner judgment, an attestation, while it is in force, of heirship 
to eternal life. Again it must involve a due rating of the fact 
that fellowship with Christ in the intermediate state, or con- 
scious unfitness for that fellowship, has the virtue of a sen. 
tence from the Divine Judge. In consideration of the length 
of the intermediate state for the great mass of men, it must 
be concluded that the vast majority of the race experiences no 
inconsiderable installment of judgment before the great con- 
cluding epoch pictured in revelation. If, in addition to this 
fact, we consider the operation of ordinary psychological laws 
to continue after death, we shall find further reason for allow- 
ing the thought of the intermediate state to modify our con- 
ception of the judgment. Under the operation of these laws 
the remote is reduced to small dimensions. Suppose then, 
that one dies at the age of ten, and has ten thousand years of 
conscious life before the resurrection era. In the retrospect 
the period of earthly life will naturally be reduced well nigh 
to the vanishing point. Must it not, therefore, seem very 
artificial and strange to have that brief period passed under 
detailed scrutiny before God’s tribunal, and made a basis of 
eternal destiny, to the neglect of all the experience of the 
prolonged age intervening? Could it seem to the crucified 
thief an appropriate procedure, after having spent several 
thousand years with Christ in paradise, and progressed 
through all this long period in spiritual stature, to have the 
record which preceded the crucifixion judicially reproduced ? 
Instances of this kind advise us not to interpret too literally 
the representation of a review of all earthly conduct at the 


568 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


great assize. As previously noticed, the New Testament in 
pursuance of its practical aim to furnish adequate motives to 
right conduct in this world does not stop to consider the inter- 
mediate state, but links earthly doing immediately with eternal 
destiny. This is, practically, as has been said, the important 
point of view. Still a complete theory must take account of 
the age-long life for the majority of the race in the intermedi- 
ate state; and when this is done it must seem an unnatural 
excess of formality to bring the earthly record into specific 
review. What fixes destiny is the ultimate character. The 
deeds done in the body derive their significance from this 
point of view. Earthly conduct invites to an approving or 
condemnatory sentence in the divine mind according to the 
permanent deposit which it has made in the ethical and reli- 
gious nature. Translated out of the language of popular 
rhetoric into that of dogmatic specification, this is what the 
New Testament representation means. It foreshadows the 
great fact that there is an ultimate dispensation in which 
universally there shall be a proper adjustment between lot 
and character, a final consignment of each individual to his 
own place. The introduction of this dispensation may have 
its spectacular accompaniments; but it is no part of the prov- 
ince of dogma to catalogue these, or to insist upon the literal 
fulfillment of this or that element of prophetical picturing.! 


V.— THE FINAL DISPENSATION. 


The light of prophecy casts a momentary gleam beyond the 
throne of judgment, and discloses two companies : the one upon 








1 The literalist may well be made to hesitate when he discovers that a de- 
tailed review before a judgment throne of a company numbering only fifty 
times as many as are now living on the earth would require an interval of 
not less than two thousand years, even should only one second be granted to 
the examination of each individual. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 569 


the right hand, the other upon the left; the one pronounced 
blessed, the other accursed ; the one welcomed to a city of 
which God and the Lamb are the unchanging light, the other 
cast into the outer darkness; the one heir to eternal life and 
received into a kingdom prepared from the foundation of the 
world, the other subjected to the second death and dispatched 
into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.! 





1 Matt. xxv. 34-40, 46; Rev. xxi. 22-27, xxii. 1-5; Matt. xxv. 30, 41-46, v. 
29, 30, viii. 12, xvili. 8, 9; Mark ix. 43-48; Rev. xx. 14, 15, xxi. 8. 

A few words on biblical terminology will not be inappropriate at this point. 
Of the three terms, Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna, used to foreshadow the lot 
and location of men beyond this life, the last only is assigned a thoroughly dis- 
tinct and uniform significance. In correspondence with the limited develop- 
ment of eschatology in the Old Testament, Sheol denotes generally the common 
receptacle of the dead, the deep, silent, shadowed pit, beneath the earth’s sur- 
face, where the souls of all classes of mortals experience the relative emptiness 
and oblivion of a shadelike existence (Gen. xxxvii. 35, xlii. 38; Deut. xxxii. 
2 wal, i. O- JOD VIL. Oo, x. 21, 22, XO, XIV. 3%, Xvi. 19,16; xxvi. GO; \ Ps, vi 
Sy ik. 17, xxx, 3, Xlix. 10,-lv. 15, Ixxxvi. 13, bexxviil’ 5, 12, bexxix! 48;' Prov.i, 
Tay V5, Vile 27, 1X: 17, 18, XV, 11, /24, 'Xxill, 14, xxvii.’ 20; xxx. 164 Eccl. ix.'s. 
6; Cant. viii. 6; Isa. v. 14, xiv. g, 15, xxxvili. 10, 11, 18; Lam. iii. 6; Ezek. 
xxxi, 14-18, xxxii. 18-24; Hab. ii. 5). But, inasmuch as its subterranean loca- 
tion assimilates it in a measure to the grave which receives the bodies of the 
departed, it is used sometimes where the latter term seems to be in place. 
Says Schultz: “In later as well as in olden times, the grave is, beyond all 
doubt, the prototype with which the idea of Sheol is associated — not as if the 
two were confounded, but, because the abode of the dead being thought of as 
underground, the imagination naturally pictures it as a grave. Even in ordin- 
ary language the two ideas readily alternate. The inhabitants of Sheol are 
those ‘who dwell in the dust,’ who go down to the pit” (Old Testament 
Theology, II. 324). Being viewed as the common abode of the dead, Sheol 
was not of course described as specifically a place of punishment. Only as the 
death which brought men into its inclosure was regarded as a manifestation of 
divine wrath, did it appear in Old Testament contemplation as a theatre of 
retribution. 

The corresponding New Testament term, Hades, is used in some connec- 
tions in much the same general way for the region of the dead (Rev. xx. 13; 
Acts ii. 27, 31); but in other relations it is given a more positive association 
with the future retribution upon the wicked than pertains to Sheol (Matt. 
xi. 23, xvi. 18; Luke x. 15, xvi. 23). The meaning of Gehenna, on the other 
hand, is uniformly that of the place or estate of future punishment (Matt. v. 
22, 29, 30, x. 28, xviii. 9, xxiii. 15, 33; Mark ix. 43, 45,47, Luke xi. §; James 


570 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


Whatever figurative elements enter into the description of 
the fate of the wicked, there is no legitimate escape from the 
conclusion that the description was meant to convey an im- 
pression of irremediable doom. Such a doom is emphatically 
intimated by the aspect of finality which the facts associated 
with the sentence pronounced upon the wicked impart thereto. 
The sentence comes after trial, at the end of the world, in the 
issue of a general judgment which is pictured as the complet- 
ing act of God’s judicial agency. 

A doom that excludes all remedy is also indicated by the 
emphatic terms which are employed to express the punish- 
ment visited upon the wicked. They are cast into the zz- 
guenchable fire; they go away into eternal punishment ;? 
they suffer eternal destruction from the face of the Lord.* 
The word aidvos, which is rendered into English as “ eternal”’ 
in the above passages, does not, it is true, necessarily denote 
endless duration; but it certainly 1s capable of that meaning, 
being applied even to the Divine Being,‘ as well as to the 
presumably imperishable blessedness and riches of the right- 
eous.° Being thus capable of signifying the never-ending, the 
reasonable conclusion is that it was meant to have this mean- 
ing in relation to the punishment of the wicked, since that 
punishment is put in antithesis to the lot of the righteous, 
and is given in every context in which it is mentioned a de- 
cisive aspect of finality. To assume that aidvos was con- 
sciously used in the restricted sense of a long, but not endless, 
period is incongruous with all the pains taken to convey an 
impression of finality as regards the outcome of faith and 
righteousness on the one hand, and of unbelief and wicked- 
ness on the other. 

RREOEDEE Hons PANG AT Ita DEE NUT AN Ln ALON AMON ADO ME ka 


iii. 6). A like significance belongs to the word Tartarus, which is used ina 
verbal form in 2 Pet. ii. 4. 

1 Matt. iii. 12; Mark ix. 43-48; Rev. xx. 10. 

2 Matt. xxv. 46. 4 Rom. xvi. 26; Heb. ix. 14. 

8:2 Thess: i:)0, 5 Matt. xxv. 46; 2 Cor. iv. 17, v.1; Heb. v. 9, ix. 15. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 571 


Once more, the fact of an irremediable doom for at least 
some of the wicked is clearly indicated by the description of 
a sin which is never to be forgiven. “Verily I say unto you, 
All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and 
their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme : but 
whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never 
forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”? “If any man 
see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and 
God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There 
is asin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should 
make request.’ * The force of such language is not easily 
evaded. If it be said that we are not definitely informed that 
anyone has ever committed the sin in question, the obvious 
reply is that Christ and the apostles were not of such a specu- 
lative temper as to make it likely that they would deal with 
far-fetched hypotheses. Their solemn declarations, therefore, 
respecting an unpardonable sin imply a real liability of men 
to its perpetration. If, again, it be said that the sin described 
is indeed never forgiven, but the penalty of it may be dis- 
charged in a long though limited period, an equally obvious 
reply is at hand, since the divine forgiveness, in New Testa- 
ment usage, means restoration to divine favor and communion, 
and not merely the bare cancelling of a specific penalty ; accord- 
ingly, the endless exclusion from forgiveness must be regarded as 
signifying endless exclusion from divine favor and communion. 

The evidence which may be urged against the notion of 
irremediable doom is contained in certain passages, found 
mostly in the Epistles of Paul, which strongly emphasize the 
unifying and reconciling office of Christ. Taken in their 


1 Mark iii. 28, 29; Matt. xii.31, 32. The sin referred to in these texts may 
be described as desperate and persistent resistance of ample light. 

2 John v. 16, 

3 Rom. v. 15, 18, xi. 32; 1 Cor. xv. 22, 27, 28; 2 Cor. v. 18, 19; Eph. io, 
10; Phil. ii. 10, 11; Col. i. 19, 20; 1 Tim. iv. 10. See also John xii. 32; Acts 
iii. 21; Rev. xx. 14, 15. 


B72 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


literal verbal sense several of these texts can be interpreted 
as teaching universal restorationism. But were they meant 
to inculcate this doctrine? We are far from being persuaded 
that this conclusion, which involves the New Testament in 
sharp contradiction with itself, is warranted. So far as Paul’s 
sentences are concerned, they are largely explained by the 
Pauline idealism, which led the apostle repeatedly to speak 
of the work of Christ according to its proper aim and intrinsic 
tendency. As he represented the trespass of Adam accord- 
ing to its tendency, and so pictured the race as condemned 
with the forefather, though this is not the precise fact, so he 
described the work of Christ according to its ideal aim and in- 
trinsic tendency or fitness to reconcile all unto God. This 
idealizing habit of thought and expression, taken in connec- 
tion with his undoubting confidence that the lordship of Christ 
would ultimately be gloriously demonstrated, and universally 
recognized by the rational creation, either with loyal delight 
or under the compelling force of divine disclosure, explains the 
whole line of his statements which have a seeming affiliation 
with restorationism. That he thought of the obdurately 
wicked as candidates for a hopeless doom is clearly intimated 
by the picture which he drew of the divine vengeance which, 
at the second coming of Christ, shall be rendered “to them 
that know not God and to them that obey not the gospel of 
our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment, even eternal 
destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of 
His might.” ? 

As for the few texts outside of Paul’s writings which have 
a restorationist sound, there is very little difficulty involved in 
their interpretation. John xi. 32 may be regarded as a vivid 
rhetorical expression of the arresting power and unique attrac- 
tion of Christ crucified. It does not state that all men are 
to be drawn so effectually to true faith as to obtain eternal 





12 Thess. i. 7-9. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 57S 


salvation ; and it cannot fairly be questioned that the evange- 
list who recorded the words thought that some men would 
persist in unbelief and become the subjects of the abiding 
wrath of God.’ Acts iil. 21, in speaking of the restoration of 
all things, simply points forward to a great consummation 
of the Messianic kingdom, which is to precede the closing up 
of the dispensation. The description given in Rev. xx. 14 of 
the casting of death and Hades into the lake of fire cannot 
be regarded as picturing the end or absence of retribution, for 
in the very next verse it is said, “If any was not found written 
in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.’”’ 

We have spoken thus far of an irremediable doom without 
attempting to determine whether this consists in conscious 
suffering or in annihilation. The general opinion of the 
Church has embraced the former alternative, though occa- 
sionally an earnest advocate of annihilation has appeared. In 
the language of some apologists for the latter view the phrase 
“conditional immortality”’ plays a conspicuous réle. The 
phrase is in one sense of indubitable propriety, since the as- 
sumption of the creation of souls involves the conclusion that 
their continued being is conditioned upon the purpose of the 
Creator. But in the annihilationist’s creed there is the more 
specific conclusion that inherence in Christ is, according to 
God's purpose and plan, an essential condition of immortality. 

The fact that the Scriptures describe the fate of the wicked 
by such terms as death and destruction may be cited in favor 
of annihilation.2 But it is certain that these terms are used, 
in various connections, in a figurative sense, with reference 
rather to a wretched and impoverished state of being than to 
cessation of being.® They afford, therefore, no certain ground 


1 John iii. 36; 1 John v. 16. 

2 Matt. vii. 13, x. 28; Rom. vi. 23, viii. 13; John iii. 16; 2 Thess.i.g; Rev. 
Bx: 14,57 'S; 

8 john v. 24; Rom. vii. 9-11; Eph. ii. 1; Col. ii. 13; Matt. x. 6, 39; Luke 
xix. 10; 2 Pet. iii. 6, 7. 


574 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


for affirming annihilation proper. Indeed, so far as scriptural 
data are concerned, the references to the undying worm, to 
eternal punishment, and to the smoke of torment ascending 
forever,! furnish quite as much evidence on the side of con- 
scious suffering as can be cited in favor of the opposing alter- 
native. There is some room, however, for the suspicion that 
the purpose underlying this order of expressions was rather to 
paint irremediable doom, with wretchedness so long as con- 
sciousness should last, than to teach positively strict endless- 
ness of painful existence. On either theory, the punishment 
is endless, in the sense that the condemnatory sentence is 
never to be lifted, never to be succeeded by restoration to favor 
and blessing. Specific instances in the Scriptures indicate 
that the word “eternal” may be applied to an act or process 
which, though temporary in itself, induces irreversible conse- 
quences.” 

On purely rational grounds something can beesaid in favor 
of the annihilation of the incorrigibly wicked. Why should 
they be preserved to mar to all eternity the perfection of the 
universe? If it be said that the exigencies of the divine gov- 
ernment call for their preservation and continued misery, it 
is still difficult to construe any such governmental exigencies. 
The knowledge of their lot certainly cannot be regarded as 
perpetually needed by the righteous to confirm them in their 
holy and blessed estate. To those who have reached the 
proper height of loving communion with God the fear of pain 
must become an inferior incentive compared with the horror 
of the thought of sinning against infinite holiness and love. 
The supreme spiritual motives to perfect allegiance must 
be so great, that all the motives which could come from the 
knowledge of a theatre of suffering in the outer darkness 
must be, in the comparison, only as a rush-light to the sun. 
Thus we are left without the ability to specify any good 


1 Mark ix. 48; Matt. xxv. 46; Rev. xiv. 11. 2 Heb. vi. 2; Jude 7. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 575 


reason for the preservation of lost men. But on a theme 
which reaches like this into mist and obscurity, it little 
becomes us to dogmatize with full confidence. We have 
the fact of irremediable doom; we have no distinct warrant 
for annihilation; we do well, so far as any attempt at indoc- 
trination is concerned, to leave the subject where it is left 
by the Scriptures. 

A philosophical justification of an irrepealable sentence 
against a man is found solely in the possibility of moral sui- 
cide, or the extinction of spiritual capacity by continued per- 
versity. The Scriptures, it 1s true, do not seem definitely to 
assign such a ground to the ultimate fate of the wicked. But 
it is not arbitrary to say that this is due largely to the prac- 
tical aim and to the popular, vivid, and concrete style of the 
Scriptures. It puts the urgency of right conduct upon earth 
more vividly to associate it immediately with future destiny 
than it does to speak of its result upon the spiritual nature, 
and then to draw the inference that this nature, according to 
its gravitation toward good or evil, is a ground of eternal 
blessedness or of eternal perdition. Had they been wont to 
use a more prosaic and abstract form of discourse, the Scrip- 
tures would doubtless have given a larger place to the latter 
representation. As it is, they cannot be said to have dis- 
carded it altogether; on the contrary, there are solemn inti- 
mations in the words of Christ that the extinction of the 
higher capacities of the soul is the great penalty of misdoing.! 
A nature impoverished by the loss of its better capacities, 
and impelled by the inferior appetencies which cannot be 
satisfied in the life to come, is of necessity a subject of future 
punishment. It has in itself the elements of perdition, and 
needs no such instrument of torture as is supposed in the pre- 
posterous theory of literal hell fire. 

We have characterized the foregoing as the sole philosophi- 


1 Matt. vi. 23; Luke xi. 34; Matt. xiii. 12, xxv. 29; Mark iv. 25; Luke viii. 18. 


576 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


cal justification of irremediable doom. In this we have ignored 
the reasoning of Thomas Aquinas! and some others that sin, 
as being against an infinite being, has an infinite demerit, 
and is therefore justly visited with endless punishment. Such 
reasoning is not adapted to carry conviction. It leaves no 
room for a proper distinction between sins, since all alike must 
be regarded as infinite, inasmuch as all are more or less di- 
rectly against God. It depreciates the significance which 
cought to be assigned to the interior moral disposition in de- 
termining the merit or demerit of an act. One would need 
to suppose, on the basis of the objective measure in question, 
that to slander the race is an incomparably greater sin than 
to slander an individual, whereas it is by no means certain 
that the latter may not involve just as much malice as could 
be put into the former. The true measure of sin is subjective 
and intensive, not exterior and extensive. Doubtless the great- 
ness and the holiness of the object which is sinned against 
serve to enlarge the measure of the sin where that object is 
distinctly apprehended as standing in the way of sin. But 
even then the measure of the sin is not determined by the 
mere quantity or quality of the object. It is not the degree 
of greatness and holiness sinned against that gives the 
measure of sin, but rather the degree of selfish and reckless 
defiance of greatness and holiness. When this is infinite the 
sin can properly be described as infinite; but who is prepared 
to say that even the most enlightened devil can put an infinite 
degree of selfish and reckless defiance of God into his trans- 
gression? It is to be noticed, moreover, that a sin in which 
there is a conscious reference to God may be less than one 
in which there is no such reference. The perplexed soul which 
gives transient harborage to a doubt about the justice of divine 
providence certainly transgresses in a less degree than the 
one who, without a reference to God, nurtures in his heart 





1 Sum. Theol. II. 1. 87. 4. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 577 


murderous violence against his neighbor. We are thus 
forced to conclude, that the sin of a man, whether with or 
without conscious reference to God, is not properly infinite, 
and can be so described only in a loose rhetorical yse of 
language. 

There is a growing tendency in Christian minds to repudi- 
ate the possibility of eternal suffering being the lot of a 
majority of the race. This implies of course either that the 
incorrigibly wicked will be annihilated, or that they will in 
fact make a minority. Christ’s words in response to the ques- 
tion, “Are there few that be saved?’’! may seem to stand 
in the way of the latter assumption. But the scope designed 
to be given to His words is matter for inquiry. Few, if any, 
would wish to contend that they distinctly contemplated that 
great fraction of the race which passes off the earthly stage 
before reaching the opportunity for intelligent choice of one 
way or another. As regards those having opportunity for 
moral decisions, the words were undoubtedly true to the ap- 
pearance of things in that unbelieving and recreant generation ; 
but who can say that they were meant to give the picture of 
what must be found in any and every age in spite of all divine 
expenditure through a remedial economy? With the prog- 
ress of the ages the conditions may be greatly changed. More- 
over it is to be noticed that Christ in another connection sug- 
gested a basis of an improved expectation by saying, ‘‘ With 
God all things are possible.’’ Doubtless He felt deeply the 
proneness of men to enter the broad way. Still it is properly 
subject to question whether He designed to affirm that the 
great majority will be sure to repel continuously all power of 
salutary arrest and to pursue the wrong way up to the point 
of eternal destiny. Revelation affords here no unequivocal 
verdict. Meanwhile a worthy optimism cannot refrain from 
the hope that the heirs of the kingdom — “the great multi- 





1 Luke xiii. 23, 24; Matt. vii. 13, 14. 


578 THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 


tude which no man can number” !— will be found greatly te 
exceed those who have no part with Christ. 


As respects the heavenly estate into which the righteous 
enter, an ample ground for the most exalted expectation is 
supplied by their filial relations to God. In a filial conscious- 
ness the world to come can but stand forth in bright outlines. 
Paul’s reasoning, ‘If children, then heirs, heirs of God and 
joint heirs with Christ,” * commends itself equally to head and 
heart, and opens the door upon a measureless prospect. Whom 
God admits to His household and owns as His children He 
will undoubtedly enrich with no ordinary estate. It must be 
His desire and purpose to furnish them, out of the infinite 
treasures of His own perfection and blessedness, the highest 
measure of pure felicity of which they are capable. 

Heaven is a sphere of unique blessedness as being the sphere 
of a unique harmony. External nature, ordered as perfect 
and unchecked benevolence may dictate, is there completely 
adjusted, we may believe, to the spiritual bodies of the saints, 
and spreads out into a scene of transcendent beauty. Each 
member of the heavenly community, radiant with spiritual per- 
fection, is an object of complacency and spontaneous delight 
to every other. Thus, mutually giving and receiving holy 
joys, all know the fruition of a society in which love is abso- 
lutely sovereign. As the center of this holy society, the 
ground of its harmony, the life of its life, sufficiently known 
to invite to full confidence and loving communion, sufficiently | 
mysterious in the infinite depth of His being to afford a field 
of endless research and revelation, is He who is truly known 
to be Immanuel, the everpresent One, who is above, and in, 
and through, all things, and by whom all things consist. Each 
heir of immortal life knows Him as the source of his own per- 
tection, and sees His grace and beauty mirrored in all the rest 





1 Rev. vii. 9. 2 Rom. viii. 17. 


COMPLETING STAGES. 579 


of the heavenly host. So all are “perfected into one,” and 
the prayer of Christ gains its ideal fulfillment. To the Church 
militant, struggling through earthly vicissitudes and battling 
with foes, has succeeded the Church triumphant, dwelling in 
unclouded light and secure in its eternal inheritance. 

The greatness of God and of His universe guarantees to this 
company of His immortal children opportunities of adequate 
variety as well as of endless progress in their experiences. 
No occasion of satiety needs to be apprehended from lack of 
fresh discoveries and new points of view. Moreover, it is 
characteristic of the spiritual and eternal to be permanently 
satisfying. ‘There is this great difference,” says Augustine, 
“between things temporal and things eternal, that a temporal 
object is valued more before we possess it, and begins to prove 
worthless the moment we attain it, because it does not satisfy 
the soul, which has its only true and sure resting-place in eter- 
nity: an eternal object, on the other hand, is loved with 
greater ardor when it is in possession than while it is still an 
object of desire, for no one in his longing for it can set a 
higher value on it than really belongs to it, so as to think it 
comparatively worthless when he finds it of less value than 
he thought; on the contrary, however high the value any 
man may set upon it when he is on his way to possess it, he 
will find it, when it comes into his possession of higher value 
still.” In the symbolism of the Revelator the abundant pro- 
vision for unfailing freshness and satisfaction of spirit, on the 
part of the inhabitants of heaven, is represented by a “river 
of water of life, bright as a crystal, proceeding out of the 
throne of God and the Lamb.” 






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APPENDIX. 
I. 
THE MIRACLE OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION. 


A BRIEF summary of grounds for faith in the historical verity 
of Christ’s resurrection may fitly be appended to the discussion 
which has been awarded to the general subject of miracles. 

1. The resurrection of Christ is perfectly consonant with 
the unique character and extraordinary mission ascribed to 
Him by the New Testament in the whole trend of its teaching. 
Why should not the career of One who was so exceptional in 
character and mission pass on to an exceptional goal? If it 
was really His vocation to be the Saviour of men, His resur- 
rection is properly reckoned an essential factor in the perfect 
fulfillment of His vocation. It was supremely adapted to sup- 
port confidence in His saving office, and to enkindle a salutary 
hope in men as respects their own heirship to immortal life. 
Such was the vital conviction of the New Testament writers,’ 
and the reason of the case can easily be seen to have been 
with them. The sober conclusion must be that if it was worth 
while to provide an extraordinary Redeemer, it was worth 
while also to furnish Him with the redemptive potency in- 
contestably inherent in the great fact of His resurrection. 

2. The resurrection of Christ is made credible by the inti- 
mate relation existing between the recorded forecast of the 
same and an indubitably fulfilled prophecy. All the evangelists 
testify that Christ foretold to the disciples, with specification 
of approximate date and of circumstances, His violent death.’ 


*Rom. 1. 4; 1v..25; viii. 11,)34; 1 Cor. xv. 12-23; 1. Thess. iv. 14; 
Phil. iii. 10; Eph. i. 19, 20; ii. 5, 6; 1 Peter i. 3; Heb. xiii. 20. 

*Matt, xvi. 21-23; xvii. 9-13; xx. 17-19; xxi. 37-44; Xxvi. I, 2, 12, 
21-25; Mark viii. 31-33; ix. 9-13, 31, 32; X. 33, 34; xii. 6-11; xiv. 8, 18- 
21; Luke ix. 22, 31; xviii. 32, 33; xx. 13-17; John ii. 19-22; xii. 7, 32, 
33; xiii. 21-30. 

531 

38 


582 APPENDIX. 


They are clear and emphatic upon this point. Nor does it 
lie within the limits of sane criticism to allege that these pro- 
phetic utterances were manufactured post eventum. Some 
of them appear as part and parcel of a fabric as remote from 
an appearance of invention as anything in the gospel narra- 
tives. What else, for instance, than a true reminiscence can 
be supposed to be contained in Peter’s impetuous rebuke to 
the prophesying Christ, and in the intense response of Christ, 
“Get thee behind me, Satan?” Features like these stamp 
the account in which they stand as an excerpt from real his- 
tory. In like manner the parable of the householder and 
the wicked husbandmen is» commended by its simple and 
graphic character as a substantially true reproduction of the 
Master’s words, and so testifies to a distinct forecast by Him 
of His violent death. Now, the evangelists who record this 
line of well-accredited prophesying associate with it another 
line of prophesying; namely, that respecting the rising of the 
Son of Man from the dead. Our contention is that the ful- 
fillment of the one line of prophesying makes credible the 
fulfillment of the other also. He who foresaw with such cer- 
tainty that He must pass on to a tragic death may very well 
be regarded as having been endowed with authentic fore- 
sight when He spoke of His resurrection from the dead. To 
be sure, it may be alleged that the recorded forecast of the 
resurrection does not stand on a parity with the recorded pre- 
diction of the death upon the cross. In fact, the plea has been 
made, that if Christ had thrown out any clear intimations of a 
resurrection the disciples would not have been so disheartened 
and paralyzed by the death of their Master. But this is an 
induction which merits very scanty respect. Only by slow 
degrees did the disciples rise to anything like a spiritual con- 
ception of the Messianic kingdom. From their habitual point 
of view the death of the Messiah was a dark enigma. It 
seemed to them like the swallowing up of all hope and prom- 
ise. They remained unreconciled to the thought of such a 
terrible issue. By natural consequence, while their minds 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 583 


thus rebelled against the thought of the death of their Master, 
the idea of His resurrection remained in mist and obscurity. 
As one of the evangelists reports, they had questionings on 
the subject, and shrank from asking explanations.’ The mes- 
sage on either point was for the time being beyond them. 
When, therefore, the catastrophe came, when the Master went 
down under a storm of hate and contempt, and the shadow of 
His ignominy darkened the pathway of their own lives, nat- 
urally they were too stricken in heart to entertain any sub- 
stantial hope. To triumph over the dismal appearance required 
a faith approaching more nearly to omnipotent virtue than any 
which they were able to exercise. Considering the plane of 
religious understanding reached by them when they were con- 
fronted by the tragedy of Calvary, we may affirm that their 
practical neglect for the time being of the thought of a resur- 
rection of the crucified One is no disproof of the fact that He 
gave prophetic intimations of His resurrection as well as of 
His death. Nor is it necessary to stop with this mere negativing 
of the objector’s plea. It can be claimed that an appearance 
of incongruity would attach to Christ’s representations respect- 
ing Himself, unless it be granted that along with the forecast 
of the ignominious death there went a prophecy of triumph 
over death and the grave. The profound emphasis which 
Christ placed upon allegiance to Himself and the eminent 
place which He claimed for Himself in the divine kingdom 
would have been in palpable disharmony with His references 
to His crucifixion, had no intimations been added of a life 
coming to glorious manifestation beyond the cross and the 
tomb. The record of these intimations stands as a congruous 
element in a historical complex. We claim, therefore, that 
it is reasonable to accept that record as representative of a his- 
torical verity and to rate it, in consideration of its close asso- 
ciation with a fulfilled prophecy, as a support to faith in the 
resurrection of our Lord. 

3. The victorious confidence, with which the disciples took 
up and prosecuted the cause of their crucified Master, must 





'Mark ix. 10, 32. 


584 APPENDIX 


be referred to some adequate cause. The scholarship of the 
Christian world is practically agreed in identifying that cause 
with the undoubting belief of the disciples in the resurrection 
of Christ. Various critics may question the fact of the resur- 
rection, but it requires exceptional hardihood to deny the 
triumphant belief of the disciples in the matter. What accounts 
for that belief? For one who does not rule out miracles 
by dogmatic fiat the most satisfactory explanation will take 
the form of this statement: The belief was enkindled and 
sustained by the actual appearance of Christ as victor over 
death and the grave. b 

Among the opposing explanations which have been offered, 
that which appeals to a sham resurrection, or the awakening 
of the entombed Christ from a swoon, hardly deserves serious 
consideration. The smiting words of Strauss scarcely exag- 
gerate its failure to meet the historical situation. He says: 
“One who crept forth half dead from the grave, and crawled 
about a sickly patient, who had need of medical care, of ban- 
daging, nursing, and strengthening, and who must still in the 
end succumb to his sufferings, could not have made upon 
the disciples that impression that He was the conqueror of 
death and the grave and the prince of life, which lay back 
of their ensuing activity. Such a resuscitation would simply 
have weakened the impression made upon them by His life 
and death; at most it would have given to it a pathetic cast; 
by no possibility could it have transformed their sorrow into 
enthusiasm, their reverence into worship.” 

Not very much superior is the explanation which refers the 
unshaken belief of the disciples to illusion or subjective fan- 
tasy. This amounts practically to an attempt to escape miracle 
at the expense of attributing miraculous virtue to illusion. 
It strains rational conviction to the point of torture when we 
are asked to conclude that a mere ghost, dressed up by a dis- 
tempered imagination, could have wrought such a mighty 
and substantial result. Then, too, it is troublesome to con- 
ceive how groups of individuals, some of whom at least were 








1Das Leben Jesu fiir das deutsche Volk bearbeitet, 2te Aufl. p. 298 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 585 


as hardheaded and practical men as might be found in that 
age, could have been subjects for a common and simultaneous 
illusion. It is to be noted, moreover, that the disciples be- 
lieved, not merely that they saw the risen Christ, but that 
they also received messages from Him. This is the common 
testimony of the evangelists. Is it to be supposed that their 
senses conspired to play them tricks? Of course, the reality 
of the messages may be denied. But the fact remains that 
they are conformable to the tenor of the Gospels, and that in 
their combination of simplicity and grandeur they are such 
messages as might properly be supposed to have been spoken 
by the risen Lord. 

Decidedly more respectable than either of the attempted 
explanations just considered is that which refers the belief 
of the primitive disciples to interior visions wrought by ob- 
jective agency. The assumption here is that Christ, apart 
from the body which was consigned to the grave, wrought 
upon the minds of the disciples, thus giving them a sense of 
His recovered presence. The visions were not pure hallu- 
cinations. Christ was back of them, though simply as a spir- 
itual agent, and not as an embodied personality. With respect 
to this theory, the natural conclusion is that it is not worth 
while. It assumes a miracle, only in a psychical as opposed to 
a physical range. No appreciable advantage belongs to such 
an exchange, and there attaches to it the disadvantage that 
it bars out the means of accounting for various items which 
are contained in the resurrection narratives. In particular 
the explicit uncontradicted testimony to the empty tomb makes 
against its acceptance. 

4. We have from the hand of the Apostle Paul testimony 
to a succession of appearances of the risen Christ—testimony 
given under conditions which secure to it substantially the 
same worth that would belong to the direct statements of eye- 
witnesses. It is supposed by some recent historians that 
Paul may have been converted within a year from the death 
of Christ. At most only an interval of a few years fell be- 
tween the two events. From that point he was in communica- 


586 APPENDIX. 


tion with witnesses to the resurrection. He had a pro- 
longed interview with Peter about three years after 
his espousal of the new faith. As having been  for- 
merly a special agent of the Pharisaic and priestly party in its 
attempt to suppress those who believed on Jesus, he must have 
known what that party was able to offer against the fact of 
the resurrection. He was on the field and had the advantage 
of close association with the bitter opponents as well as with 
the friends of the new religious movement. While he was 
thus furnished with substantial sources of information, he 
wrote under conditions which advised to carefulness and so- 
briety in his statements; for, in the third decade from the 
crucifixion many of those to whom he referred as witnesses 
of the reappearance of Christ must have been still at hand, 
as indeed he took pains to affirm. We are compelled, there- 
fore, to admit that we are confronted by a most weighty his- 
torical testimony when we take up these words of the apostle: 
“T delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, 
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ; 
and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on 
the third day according to the Scriptures ; and that He appeared 
to Cephas ; then to the twelve; then He appeared to above five 
hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain 
until now, but some are fallen asleep; then He appeared to 
james; then to all the apostles.” 

An attempt is sometimes made to discount this statement 
of Paul, and to turn it into evidence for a vision hypothesis, 
by greatly emphasizing the fact that the apostle numbers him- 
self among those to whom the resurrection of Christ had been 
directly attested. Paul, it is contended, had only a vision of 
Christ, and therefore it may be presumed that the witnesses 
to whom he referred were not supposed to have had any more 
tangible proofs of a resurrection than that contained in mere 
visions. But this construction is quite manifestly unwarranted 
and warped. There is no reason to infer that Paul did not 
believe that Christ was objectively presented to himself be- 


13 Cor. xv. 3-7. 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 587 


fore the gates of Damascus. It is in truth utterly wide of the 
probability to suppose that he thought of that great experience 
as a mere matter of inward vision. In numbering himself, 
therefore, among those able to witness to the fact of the res- 
urrection, he casts no doubt on the objective reality of the 
appearances of Christ to the earlier witnesses. Nor did he 
by any means intend to disconnect those appearances from an 
earthly theatre by his reference to an appearance from heaven. 
What his language implies is the belief that the risen Christ 
actually appeared to himself, not that He appeared in precisely 
the same way as to the others. The appearance from heaven 
corresponds with the thought of Christ as seated at the right 
hand of the Father, which seems to have been current among 
the disciples from a point adjacent to the first Christian 
Pentecost. 

5. Though Paul’s language does not contain an explicit 
mention of the empty tomb, it does contain an implicit refer- 
ence thereto. Who can doubt that, when he spoke of the 
common tradition as affirming that Christ was buried and was 
raised on the third day, he thought of Joseph’s tomb being 
emptied of its prisoner, and meant to say that this item was 
an undisputed part of the tradition? We have then an item 
witnessed to by all the New Testament writers who make any 
detailed reference to the resurrection; for each of the four evan- 
gelists begins his story of the Easter morning with a picture 
of the empty tomb. 

Now, this item, respecting which we have such complete 
unanimity, is not of small historical significance. To suppose 
that a rumor got started about the tomb being empty, and 
that this rumor incited no one to make investigation into the 
matter is to suppose that both the disciples and their deadly 
opponents were dreamers living in dreamland. ‘Too much was 
at stake on either side to admit of easy-going indolence. The 
tomb must have been found empty. What had become of the 
body? To charge the disciples with having stolen and con- 
cealed it is to make choice of an alternative that lands one in 
helpless absurdity. A dead body under their hand and a hie 


538 APPENDIX. 


upon their consciences could never have fitted the disciples 
to be the heroes and martyrs of a new dispensation. On the 
other hand, if their opponents had rifled the tomb they had 
but to produce their prey to confound the newborn enthusiasm 
of the sect of the Nazarene. So the empty tomb, unanimously 
witnessed to by the New Testament historians, joins with the 
appearances of the risen Christ as reported through the apostle 
to the Gentiles to bespeak faith in the fact of the resurrection. 

6. Each of the evangelists is in agreement with Paul in 
teaching that the risen Christ appeared to the entire company 
of the apostles. Mark’s Gospel, it is true, does not in the 
extant conclusion reach to a-description of the appearance, but 
it clearly presumes upon the fact of the appearance sketched 
in the appended verses. Paul mentions two visitations of 
Christ to the whole group of the apostles. John also men- 
tions two visitations, though taking note that Thomas was ab- 
sent from the apostolic company on the occasion of the first 
of these. 

7. The apparent discrepancies between the different ac- 
counts of the resurrection are due in no small degree to the 
fact that no one of them is complete. In reviewing them a 
sober historical judgment will require us not to reckon omis- 
sions as tantamount to denials. ‘There is no reason, for in- 
stance, to suppose that Paul meant to deny that Christ ap- 
peared to one or more of the devoted women who were num- 
bered among His followers. It suited his purpose to specify 
by name only such witnesses as by virtue of official station 
and general reputation had weight even in parts of the Chris- 
tian domain remote from Jerusalem. Almost no significance 
therefore pertains to the omission. Scarcely more do the 
omissions of this or that evangelist discredit items in the nar- 
ratives of the rest. Doubtless it remains an enigma, why 
Mark (and Matthew only less completely in his dependence 
upon Mark) passed over the appearances at Jerusalem and 
emphasized Galilee as the theatre of Christ’s revisitation of the 
disciples. Possibly the explanation may be akin to that which 
eminent critics offer for the fact that the Judzan ministry of 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRISw. 589 


Christ receives such scanty notice in the same Gospel. The 
Galilean point of view may have been predominant in the 
ultimate source upon which Mark’s compendium of this sec- 
tion of the gospel history was based. In any event, it is to 
be noticed that Mark agrees with all the other evangelists 
in assuming that the disciples were still at Jerusalem when 
Christ came forth from the tomb. His narrative, therefore, 
at least provides an interval for possible appearances at Jeru- 
salem before the retirement of the disciples to Galilee. Mind- 
ful of this fact, and taking note also of the exceeding brevity 
of Mark’s treatment of the theme of the resurrection—a brevity 
such as to suggest mutilation of the original manuscript—we 
shall find no adequate reason for estimating the narrative of 
Luke and John by the positive contents of the second Gospel.’ 

We have said that omissions are not equivalent to con- 
tradictions. We may add that variations and even contradic- 
tions in details are no valid disproof of the essential fact to 
which they pertain. A reminiscence may be perfectly unfal- 
tering as to a great central fact, while yet it is unable to 
reproduce with certainty this or that particular. A criticism, 
which has not become nearsighted and picayunish by too con- 
tinuous grubbing in small details, will not magnify the import 
of discrepancies in the subordinate particulars of brief and 
independent narratives. We have the fact that a man of Paul’s 
moral potency and intellectual calibre, on the basis of data 
gathered within a few years of Christ’s death, specified as 
vouchers for the actual appearance of the risen Christ a full list 
of witnesses, the majority of whom were still alive at the time 
when he wrote. We have the unanimous testimony of the 
New Testament historians to the fact of the empty tomb. We 
have the concurrent testimony of Paul and all the evangelists 
to the appearance of Christ to the whole apostolic company. 
We have the fact that there was manifestly at work in the 
company of the disciples, very soon after the crucifixion, a 
mighty creative power such as might well flow from a great 
and unique event like the resurrection. We have the record 


‘Compare Friedrich Loofs, Die Auferstehungsberichte und ihr Wert. 


590 APPENDIX. 


of Christ’s own forecast of His resurrection closely linked 
with the true prophecy of His violent death. We have the 
consideration that the resurrection may most reasonably be 
reckoned as a completing factor in the office of Saviour so 
prominently associated with Christ in the Gospels. Surely all 
this makes a basis upon which faith can rest without being 
in the slightest degree amenable to the charge of triviality or 
venturesomeness. 


As respects the type of the body in which the risen Christ 
made His appearances, there are no adequate means of deter- 
mination. On the one hand it can be said that a certain mys- 
tery attached to the movements of Christ in connection with 
these appearances, and that a sign may be found here that He 
was no longer under the restraints of a body of the common 
earthly type. On the other hand, it can be claimed that any 
extraordinary feature in His movements may be explained by 
the fact that the period for the self-chosen limitations of the 
servant-form was now past, and He was free to use His divine 
power in His own behalf. It may also be urged that some 
of the items reported in the gospel narratives are adverse to 
the supposition of a radical change of bodily type before the 
eve of the ascension. The subject is one upon which an at- 
tempt to dogmatize is not likely to be fruitful. 


1 b. 


ETHNIC SYSTEMS ESPECIALLY AS RESPECTS 
TRINITARIAN FEATURES. 


A VARIABLE grouping of the gods, rather than any real 
parallel to the Christian Trinity, has in general been character- 
istic of the non-Christian religions. That the grouping should 
often have taken the form of triads is very little cause for 
surprise. In the first place, a ready suggestion of a triad has 
been supplied in the widespread conception of the universe as 


ETHNIC TRINITIES. 591 


consisting of three great provinces; namely, heaven, earth, 
and underworld; or, heaven, earth, and sea. A _ polytheistic 
system naturally assigned these provinces to as many dif- 
ferent divinities. In the second place, a basis for the triad 
has been furnished in the family relation, as it has been car- 
ried over from the human to the divine sphere. Often a 
feminine counterpart or partner has been associated with a 
god, and a third divinity has stood to the pair as offspring 
or as trusted messenger. In the third place, as the result of 
a political consolidation of different districts and a fusion of 
different religious parties, a close association has been effected 
between different gods. Naturally in some of these instances 
of combination triads resulted. Finally, in so far as the ele- 
ment of priestly reflection, or conscious endeavor at system- 
making, has had place in filling out the content of a religion, 
a partiality for the number three may sometimes have wrought 
for the disposing of the gods in triads. 

In the ancient polytheistic nature-religion of Babylonia, 
the conception of the threefold division of the world seems to 
have been back of the foremost representation of the gods 
as a triad. Anu stood for the god who presides in heaven, 
Bel for the immediate ruler of the earth, and Ea for the di- 
vinity who has his seat in the deep waters under the earth 
whence spring all fountains and streams. Alongside of this 
triad a second was in course of time developed, including Sin, 
Shamas, and Ramman, associated respectively with the moon, 
the sun, and the storm of rain. The subsistence of the two 
triads indicates a very loose and qualified sort of trinitarian 
faith among the Babylonians. As much is indicated further- 
more by the great prominence given to divinities outside of 
these groups. The goddess Ishtar was accorded a high sta- 
tion, and Marduk, favored by the political prestige of Babylon, 
of which city he was the patron deity, came to outrank in prac- 
tical importance every other member of the Babylonian pan- 
theon. The Assyrian pantheon corresponded very nearly 
with the Babylonian, with the exception that the national god, 


sg2 APPENDIX. 


Ashur, was placed at the head, being given precedence over 
the primitive Babylonian triad.’ 

The ancient Egyptian religion, with its multiplicity of gods, 
furnished rather a record of triads than of a trinity proper. 
These triads were formed in many instances by a combination 
of the gods acknowledged in neighboring districts, the com- 
bination being made after the pattern of the family relation. 
“In the nomes,” says Maspero, “where the master was a god, 
often he contented himself with a single spouse and a single 
son; often also two goddesses were associated with him, who 
held at once the place of sisters and spouses, according to the 
national usage. The triads formed by the addition of two 
goddesses were almost always broken up into two new triads, 
each of which included a paternal god, a goddess-mother, and a 
divinity standing in the relation of son.” Supplementing the 
more spontaneous development of triads, there was a group- 
ing in which the reflection of a priestly school was a prom- 
inent factor. The school of Heliopolis assigned the work of 
creation to the great sun god Ra and to four couples of gods 
produced by him. To this ennead they annexed two secondary 
enneads composed of divinities selected from the multitude 
recognized in the local cults of Egypt. In this scheme it ap- 
pears that a certain pre-eminence was given to one of the 
gods. But this pre-eminence had a very unsubstantial tenure. 
Various gods were practically made rivals of the sun god Ra, 
or, indeed were ranked under different names as sun gods. 
Prominent among these favorite divinities were Osiris, his sis- 
ter and spouse Isis, and Horus, the son of Isis. We have here 
an interesting triad, but not one to which any considerable 
significance can be attached from the trinitarian point of view, 
since other triads were recognized, and moreover in the Osiris 
myth itself we have to do quite as much with a quaternion of 
gods as with a triad, a place being given to Set, the artful 





1Compare Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria ; Jeremias, 
in Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, edited by Chantepie de la Saus- 
saye. 


*Histoire Ancienne des Peoples de l’Orient Classique, I. 104, 105. 


ETHNIC TRINITIES. 593 


brother of Osiris. Varied and shifting polytheistic combina- 
tions are what the Egyptian religion on the whole presents 
to us. In the speculatve thought of the priesthood, it is true, 
there may have been a sort of transcendence of the polythe- 
istic standpoint, in favor of the conviction that all the gods are 
one, being but different forms of the supreme essence. But, 
as will be noticed in connection with the religious systems of 
India, this casting of the blanket of a pantheistic conception 
over the multiplicities of polytheism is at a very considerable 
remove from Christian trinitarianism. 

In the Persian religion the triad seems not to have been any 
considerable factor. The rank of being standing next to the 
good deity, Ahura Mazda, consisted of not less than six mem- 
bers. Among these so-called ‘““Amesha Spentas’” a certain 
pre-eminence may have pertained to the first two, Vohu Mano 
and Asha Vahista. Nevertheless in idea and function they all 
belonged to essentially the same rank. While their names 
give a hint that they may have been nothing more than per- 
sonifications of abstract ideals, they figure as personal beings. 
They may be said to represent the archangelic type, as being 
created servants of Ahura Mazda, though in the matter of 
worship and sacrifice they appear as sharers of divine honors. 
With their creator they were conceived to constitute the high- 
est sphere of being. Yet it was but a wavering line which di- 
vided off this sphere. The priestly god Sraosha, the protector 
of the poor and the defenseless, and the efficient champion 
against the demons, attained substantially to the level of the 
six special associates of Ahura Mazda. In the later era of 
the Persian religion, Mithra, the god of heavenly light and the 
preserver of good faith, was awarded a position of great prom- 
inence. During the third and fourth centuries his cult was 
more largely patronized in the Roman Empire than that of 
any other Oriental divinity. It is thus seen that in the Per- 
sian or Zoroastrian religion we have beneath the overlord, 
Ahura Mazda, many divinities or semi-divinities, and no 
proper trinity. 

The Greek religion, in its popular and poetic form, as dis- 


594 APPENDIX. 


tinguished from the religious platform embodied 1n the post- 
Socratic Greek philosophy, can not be said to have shown any 
particular affinity with the trinitarian conception. The over- 
lord, Zeus, is represented as himself descended from an 
earlier generation of gods, and around and beneath him is de- 
picted a crowd of divinities. The triad appears only as an 
unstable and accidental factor. In the Odyssey instances may 
be noticed of a special association of Zeus, Pallas, and Apollo. 
This may indicate that in the thought of the poet they were 
regarded as closely linked in their superintendence of the is- 
sues which he was contemplating. But his thought also paid 
tribute to Poseidon, and others. Moreover, it is to be noticed 
that in the Iliad antagonistic parts are assigned to the members 
of the triad just mentioned, since Pallas appears as the stead- 
fast and ardent champion of the Greeks, while Zeus and Apollo 
lend their aid betimes to the beleaguered Trojans. In both of 
the great poems there is a plenty of incarnations in the sense 
of transient investments of divinities with human forms; but 
neither presents any proper counterpart to the trinitarian 
idea or to the Christian thought of the incarnation. 

Much the same estimate is to be passed upon the triads of 
the Teutonic mythology as upon those contained in the popular 
form of the Greek religion. The grouping of three gods to- 
gether, as, for instance, Thor, Odin, and Freyr, is undoubt- 
edly of frequent occurrence. But very little significance is to 
be attached to the combination. “It is probably to be explained 
on the score of an enumeration of the chief gods, or of the 
coupling of the gods of various tribes and peoples.” 

In India we meet with a somewhat closer approach to the 
trinitarian idea than is found in any of the religions thus 
far considered. This approach, however, belongs to a com- 
paratively late epoch. The religion of the Vedic age—a 
naturalistic, mytho-poetic polytheism, modified here and there 
by a base of pantheistic thinking—placed no stress upon a 
threefold impersonation of the divine. Each god was raised 
in turn by the partiality of his devotees to the supreme place, 


1De la Saussaye, the Religion of the Ancient Teutons, pp. 286, 287. 


ETHNIC TRINITIES. 595 


and was regarded as in a manner absorbing in himself the 
whole sum of divinity. Thus in the Rig-Veda one reads that 
Agni is Varuna, Indra; that in him are all the gods. This 
form of representation, in so far as it implies one personality 
under varied manifestations, may have borne a certain resem- 
blance to a purely modalistic trinitarianism ; but it differs even 
from this type of trinitarian doctrine in that there was no 
arrest at the number three. ‘The combination of polytheistic 
and pantheistic postulates, upon which it reposed, permitted 
the assumption of any number of impersonations of the divine 
being; indeed, as appears in the Brahmanical philosophy, 
which came in to supplement the original Vedic teaching, each 
human personality could claim a substantial identity with the 
divine self. 

The trimurti of later Hinduism was based in the same com- 
bination of polytheistic and pantheistic postulates which under- 
lay the Vedic representation of multiplicity and unity. The 
polytheistic postulate was first operative. Vishnu and Siva, at 
the primary stage of development, were simply gods in a 
crowd of gods. But in course of time powerful sects became 
attached to each. Very naturally, sectarian zeal did not stop 
short of the most comprehensive claims. The devotees of 
Vishnu would not be content to assign to him any place below 
the highest. The same was true of the devotees of Siva. At 
length resort was made to the idea that the rival claims of the 
two great sectarian gods might be harmonized in the assump- 
tion that the two were after all substantially identical, being 
coequal manifestations of the one divine essence. Thus the 
conception of the godhead as susbsisting in a dual mode was 
reached. At this juncture there was no powerful sect to cham- 
pion the distinctive claims of Brahma. But the traditional 
thought of Brahma as the all-god was still operative, and ac- 
cordingly he was associated as an equal with Vishnu and Siva. 
Thus was constituted the Hindu trimurtt, We have already 
cited the opinion of Lehmann, that it was introduced as a 
makeshift for blending together different cults, and that in 
the Hindu religion it has had only a minor significance for 


596 APPENDIX. 


faith or speculation (p. 226). It is to be noticed, further- 
more, that in point of time it followed the formulation of the 
Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In this fact there is a sug- 
gestion of the possibility of borrowing; but there is no distinct 
warrant for turning the possibility into probability. “We do 
not believe,” says Hopkins, “that the trinitarianism of India 
was derived from Christian sources. But it must be admitted 
to be historically possible that the creed of the Christians, 
known to the Hindus of the sixth and seventh centuries, may 
have suggested to the latter the idea of the trinity as a means 
of adjusting the claims of Brahmanism, Krishnaism [a pop- 
ular form of Vishnuism] and Sivaism.’” Whether indebted 
or not to the Christian dogma, Hindu trinitarianism, with its 
polytheistic and pantheistic premises, and its compounding 
of rival cults evidently differed to a very considerable degree 
from the catholic Christian doctrine of the Trinity. 

In the latest Greek philosophy, the Neo-Platonic, ethnic 
speculation contributed a representation having a certain re- 
semblance to the trinitarian dogma as held by catholic Chris- 
tendom. To some extent a basis for this approximation 
was supplied by two of the preceding philosophies, Platonism 
and Stoicism. In the former the representation of the Ideas 
as supersensible realities, as the eternal pattern of the visible 
universe, as the unchanging source of all excellence and gen- 
uine being in the world, and as the sole medium of absolute 
knowledge, was well suited to furnish outlines of a Logos doc- 
trine. That it was actually suggestive in this direction is shown 
by the acknowledgments of Philo and some of the early 
Christian fathers.” Besides furnishing in this way an historic 
ground for a Logos doctrine, Platonism gave a dim sugges- 
tion of a triad, in referring to the good, to a child begotten in his 
image, and to a soul immanent to the world.“ As respects 


rr 


1K. W. Hopkins, The Religions of India, p. 545. 


2Philo, De Monarchia, i. 6; Origen, Cont. Celsum, vi. 64; Clement 
of Alexandria, Strom. v. 3. 


*Republic, Book vi. 
‘Timeus. 


ETHNIC TRINITIES. 597 


Stoicism, in its affirmation of a ruling principle, a cosmic 
reason, it made an approach to a Logos doctrine. Indeed the 
Stoics used the term Logos to designate this cosmic reason. 
In considerable part, however, the materialistic monism which 
colored their system, differenced their thought of the Logos 
both from the Christian idea included under that name and 
from the meaning which was attached to the middle term of 
the Neo-Platonic triad. 

Plotinus, as representing the summit of Neo-Platonic specu- 
lation, is best taken as the expositor of the trinitarian idea 
which comes to expression in that speculation. At the head 
of his system stands the most transcendental notion that could 
possibly be framed. The first being, otherwise called by Ploti- 
nus the principle and the good, as well as God, is conceived as 
an impersonal infinite, absolutely undifferentiated, perfectly 
exclusive of everything which can suggest variety of content, 
and above every category which the speech of man supplies. 
To use some of the words of our philosopher: “The prin- 
ciple itself, as it is beyond intellect, so likewise is it beyond 
knowledge; but knowledge subsists in the nature which is 
next to this. For to know is one certain thing; but this prin- 
ciple is one without the addition of cerfain. For if it was a 
certain one, it would net be the one itself. For itself is prior 
to a certain or some particular thing. Hence it is in reality 
ineffable. For of whatever you speak, you speak of a certain 
thing. But of that which is beyond all things, and which is 
beyond even most venerable intellect, it is alone true to assert 
that it has not any other name [than the ineffable], and that 
it is not some one of all things. Properly speaking, there is 
no name of it, because nothing can be asserted of it. 

We can say what it is not, but we can not say what it is, so 
that we speak of it from things posterior to it. . . . The 
good is not being; for being has, as it were, the form of the 
one. But that is formless, and is even without intelligible form. 

God is something which is not essence, but beyond 


991 


essence. 


1K nneads, V, iii, VI, ix. Thomas Taylor’s translation. 


39 


598 APPENDIX. 


As exalted above all distinctions, above the distinction be~ 
tween the knower and the known, above the distinction between 
being and will, the supreme entity can not entertain any pur- 
poses or produce aught by volitional activity. Nevertheless, 
according to Plotinus, production does occur. By an absolute 
necessity of nature the first being is a source of causal eff- 
ciency. His fullness, so to speak, overflows and spreads out 
into successive ranks of being, ranks decreasing in dignity 
and worth in proportion to their distance from the source. 
By this representation it is not meant that any partition of the 
substance of the first being is to be supposed. He remains 
eternally impartible and unmoved. The outgoing from him is 
purely dynamic, the forth-putting of energy or power. The 
different degrees in which his working is embodied or mani- 
fested in different beings determines their rank. Those which 
are remotest from the primary source, or have their content 
mediated through the largest number of intermediate links, 
stand lowest in the scale.’ 

The immediate product of this necessitated energizing of the 
first being is the vovs, or intellect, a timeless mind, absorbed 
in the contemplation of itself and of the first being, represent- 
ative of the first stage in differentiation, since intellect, as con- 
trasted with the absolute simplicity of the first being, includes 
both self and the knowledge of self. 

Next to the vovs is the Yuxy, the cosmic soul, whence spring 
all the lesser orders of souls. It has its immediate source in 
the vovs, as the vovs has its source in the first being. “Just 
as external discourse,” says Plotinus, “is an image of the dis- 
cursive energy within the soul, after the same manner, soul, 
and the whole of its energy, are the discourse of intellect.’’* 

Since the cosmic soul was regarded by Plotinus as separated 
by a very considerable interval from all ranks of being below 
its sphere, his system quite distinctly recognizes a triad. In- 
deed, in explicit opposition to contemporary Gnostics, with 
their long list of partial impersonations of the divine, he con- 


1Compare Eduard Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen. 
27Finneads, V, i. 


ETHNIC TRINITIES. 599 


tended that the list should enumerate only the first being, intel- 
lect, and soul. “This,” he said, “is the order according to 
nature, neither to admit more nor fewer than these in the in- 
telligible. For those who admit fewer than these must either 
say that soul and intellect are the same, or that intellect and 
that which is first are the same. It has, however, been fre- 
quently demonstrated by us that these are different from each 
other.” 

From the exposition which has been given it follows that 
the triad of Plotinus, whatever analogy it may bear to the 
Trinity postulated by Christian teaching, differs from the same 
to a very appreciable degree. In so far as that teaching in- 
corporates the idea of three co-ordinate Divine Persons, as has 
been to a considerable extent the case since the days of Augus- 
tine, no proper parallel is furnished in the triad of Plotinus, 
for in this the first being is placed high above the plane of the 
vos and the wy, these being considered as products of his 
dynamical working. If comparison be made with a form of 
Christian teaching which admits a more or less pronounced 
subordination of the Son and the Spirit, such a form as had 
place with some of the early fathers, and has also been favored 
by a considerable number of theologians in more recent times, 
the triad of Plotinus comes appreciably nearer to furnishing 
a parallel. But even in this case the distance between the 
Christian and the Neo-Platonic thought is not small. The 
first being, about whom Plotinus discourses, is far other, in 
his utterly abstract and impersonal character, than the Father 
acknowledged in the Christian system. The vots of Plotinus, 
absorbed in a comtemplation which never descends below the 
plane of its own being, is far other than the eternal Word, who 
was made flesh and dwelt among us. Certain marks of re- 
semblance may be admitted; but, on the whole, the contrasts 
between the Plotinian triad and the Christian Trinity are quite 
as noticeable as the points of similarity. 

Since Plotinus wrote in the third century, the possibility 
that his thought may have been influenced to some extent by 


1Rnneads, IT, ix. 


Goo APPENDIX. 


Christian thinking must be conceded, just as the like possi- 
bility needs to be recognized in relation to those who formu- 
lated the Hindu conception of the trimurti. But judicial schol- 
arship does not make much account of the possibility. As 
heir to the various phases of Hellenic philosophy, and as 
touched by the spirit of Oriental mysticism which was abroad 
in the Roman world of his day, Plotinus may have found suf- 
ficient incentive to represent the hierarchy of being as it ap- 
pears in his system. 

Our examination of the principal embodiments of ethnic 
thinking leads to the conclusion that only in Hinduism and in 
the later Greek philosophy do we find a noteworthy resem- 
blance to the Christian conception of the Trinity, and that 
even in these two instances the resemblance can be afhrmed 
only with important limitations. 


To the above discussion of the trinitarian features of ethnic 
systems we subjoin two or three items explanatory of other 
matters that have received a passing reference. 

The affirmation of large obligations on the part of the Koran 
to the Old Testament was not meant to imply that Mohammed 
drew directly from the writings of the Hebrews. There are 
good reasons for the conclusion that the Old Testament ma- 
terials utilized in the Koran were appropriated through oral 
channels. Before reaching the hand of the Arabian prophet 
they had been mixed with much apocryphal matter. Stanley 
Lane-Poole estimates that about one-fourth of the Koran con- 
sists in legends derived from the Jewish Haggadah. - 

As respects the dualism ascribed to Zoroastrianism (p. 85), 
it is fair to observe that it is subject to a qualification in the 
eschatology of that system. In the ultimate issue, Ahura 
Mazda and his allies are to overthrow the powers of evil 
and darkness led by Angra Mainyu. Thus the ultimate su- 
premacy of the good deity is provided for, though, of course, 
it needs to be granted that logically an inferior ground is fur- 
nished for this outcome by the representation of a divided 
power back of creation. 


SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 601 


The ultra-ritualistic text which was cited from a Brahmanical 
source (p. 117), was designed to be taken as only partially 
representative ; that is, representative of one side of the Brah- 
imanical system. Texts of a contrary tenor doubtless occur 
within the extended literature of that system. What admits of 
being asserted is, that there is a strain of Brahmanical teach- 
ing which tends to sacrifice ethical values to an ultra-ritualistic 
standpoint. The repeated declaration, that the very gods are 
dependent for their supremacy upon sacrifices, finds here and 
there a congenial supplement in the ascription of a well-nigh 
limitless efficacy to certain rites. 


Il. 
SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 


It is well understood that “realism” in the scholastic sense 
is not antithetic to “idealism,” but to “nominalism.” It stands 
for the conclusion that we are not dealing with mere names 
or conventional signs when we mention “universals’”—general 
terms, such as “wisdom,” “man,” “bird,” “animal,” “body,” 
“color.” In all instances of this kind, it holds, we are dealing 
with objective realities. To speak succinctly, scholastic realism 
has to do with the nature and function of universals, and rep- 
resents an emphatic position in favor of their reality, their 
actual existence in an objective range or apart from the hu- 
man mind engaged in contemplating them. 

The medieval scholastics found an historic basis for their 
realistic doctrine in Platonism, or in Aristotelianism, or in a 
combination of the two. As commonly understood, Plato was 
an advocate of the most emphatic and unqualified realism. Be- 
fore the individuals of like name he placed the universal ; be- 
fore concrete entities, the ideas. He regarded the latter as 
eternal and imperishable archetypes, uniform, and self-identical 
realities; whereas, individual things belong to the sphere of 
mutation, and depend for the measure of reality which they do 
possess, as well as for their cognizability, upon participation 


602 APPENDIX. 


in the universal essences, the ideas. So Plato has been gen- 
erally understood to have taught. Lotze makes the suggestion 
that Plato was badly served in this relation by the Greek lan- 
guage, as failing to afford suitable means of discrimination 
between “validity” and “subsistence ;” that what he wished to 
insist upon was not the independent subsistence of ideas, but 
their unconditional validity—the fact of an ideal order or sys- 
tem which abides in its truth quite independent of any expres- 
sion in the sphere of sensible and concrete reality, the perfect 
and unassailable integrity of thought-distinctions over against 
the flux characteristic of all finite things.’ However, the ver- 
dict that Plato conceived of the ideas as substantial entities 
can claim a pretty good ground in the fact that a philosopher 
as near to him as Aristotle so judged, and also in the fact that 
historical critics as competent as Zeller, Erdmann, and others, 
have pronounced very decidedly for the same conclusion. 
Aristotle repudiated the theory of the independent and sub- 
stantial existence of universals. The individual alone, he main- 
tained, is entitled to be called substance. A general name is a 
predicate-term, not a subject-term. It is significant of an at- 
tribute, or a complex of attributes, viewed as common to a 
greater or less number of individuals. There is no whiteness 
apart from individual white objects, and no humanity save 
in individual men. To name universals, therefore, is to ex- 
press the common or resembling qualities of a plurality of ob- 
jects. In this line of statements Aristotle seems to stand es- 
sentially on the basis of conceptualism, or the theory which 
makes universals expressive of concepts—mental representa- 
tions of the common or (more strictly) similar in a plurality 
of objects. But, on the other hand, Aristotle made statements 
which were capable of being understoond in a sense approxi- 
mating not a little to Platonic realism. With Plato he taught 
both that individuals are known in their essential character in 
and through universals, and that the objects of genuine knowl- 
edge must be supposed to be real. In this way, notwithstand- 
ing his ascription of substantiality solely to individuals, he gave 


1Logik, pp. 501-506. 


SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 603 


occasion to emphasize the superior reality of universals. A 
chance was afforded to one who was disposed to interpret 
Aristotle in favor of a somewhat stanch type of realism to do 
so without appearing to go far afield. If not fairly invited, this 
order of interpretation was not distinctly excluded. Platonism 
was undoubtedly the more congenial basis for a pronounced 
realism, but it could also find harborage among those who 
reckoned themselves disciples of Aristotle. 

The essence of the Platonic doctrine came to be expressed in 
the formula untversalia ante rem, while the characteristic fea- 
ture of Aristotle’s teaching in this relation was set forth in 
the formula universalia in re. These formulas may be accred- 
ited with a measure of propriety as applied to the respective 
ways of thinking of the two Greek philosophers. But evidently 
they are not fitted in themselves to serve as means of an ac- 
curate classification of realistic doctrine. It is necessary to 
inquire in what sense the universal is supposed to be prior 
to the individual thing, and in what sense it is supposed to 
be in the individual thing. As a matter of fact, pronounced 
realists in the Middle Ages had no objection to either formula. 
If they did not hold that universals are before the things in 
the manner of strictly independent entities, they did hold that 
they have a prior existence as the forms or patterns of things 
contained in the divine mind from eternity; and they were 
also agreed in maintaining that in an important sense they are 
in things. A discriminating exegesis must therefore look be- 
yond the mere formula with which the teaching of a writer 
may have been associated. 

It is commonly admitted that Erigena reproduced sub- 
stantially the Platonic realism. He conceived of universals 
as real essences, superior in rank to individuals, logically prior 
to them, and containing the fundament of their being. As 
Ueberweg remarks, he seems to have hypostatized the tabula 
logica, making the degrees of abstraction to correspond with 
the degrees in the scale of real existence. A close approxima- 
tion to the realistic teaching of Erigena was made by Anselm. 
He reproached contemporary nominalists for estimating umi- 


604 APPENDIX. 


versales substantias as mere words, and for showing themselves 
incapable of understanding by color anything distinct from 
body, or by wisdom anything distinct from the soul, being so 
merged in sense as to be disqualified from contemplating things 
sole and pure. He also represented the ideas which God thinks 
in the Logos as a veritable basis of the creature universe, the 
unchanging grounds of changing things, originals to which 
the things of the time-world but feebly correspond. Anselm 
did not indeed define his position very precisely, but such hints 
as he has given leave no reason to doubt that his thinking was 
emphatically of the realistic order. Among those who followed, 
William of Champeaux strongly asserted the objective reality 
of universals, and reduced individuals to the rank of accidental 
distinctions superinduced upon a common base. Funda- 
mentally Socrates, Plato, and the rest, as he represented, are 
one and the same entity, the universal, humanity, which in 
manifestation is diversified by certain accidental forms or char- 
acteristics. In the list of emphatic realists may be mentioned 
also Odo of Cambrai, Bernard of Chartres, Walter of Mortagne, 
and William of Auvergne. 

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was somewhat 
of a tendency to curtail the realistic theory. This tendency 
may have been due in part to the growing ascendency of Aris- 
totle in the thinking of that period. Abelard and John of 
Salisbury are understood to have espoused essentially the plat- 
form of conceptualism. Even such masters of orthodoxy as 
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas indulged in statements 
which make for conceptualism rather than for any type of 
realism. When the former said, Non est universale nisi dum 
intelligitur, he was certainly very far from giving expression 
to a realistic tenet. Language that looks in the same direction 
may be found with Aquinas.” However, the teaching of Aqui- 
nas shows also traces of realistic leaven. For instance, in his 
theory of cognition he seems to assume in things, as in some 

1Metaphys. Lib. v, tract. vi. cap. vil, cited by Hauréau, Histoire de 
la Philosophie Scolastique, ii, 325. 
2Sum. Theol., Pars i, quaest. xliv, art. iii; Pars i, quaest. xlv, art. iv. 


SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 605 


sense separable from their matter, a real existence of forms, 
that is, of universals in the sense of the realists. A fervent 
admirer thus construes the theory of the “angelic doctor” rela- 
tive to the process of knowledge: “The thing effects by means 
of the image-like in itself, that is the thought element, its en- 
trance into the inner world of images, that is the circle of our 
thinking. Through the species as an element in the being of 
the thing, which element is conformable to the soul, the subject 
[of cognition] is placed in the soul. The soul receives the for- 
eign form without losing its own, and this is the pre-eminence 
of the cognitive being.’” 

Somewhat more fully than Aquinas, Duns Scotus and the 
Scotists paid tribute to realistic doctrine. It is true that on 
the one hand Scotus reproduced the Aristotelian stress upon 
the individual; but it is also true that he brought to the front 
the other side of Aristotle’s teaching—his stress upon the two 
facts that individuals are known in their essential character 
through universals, and that the objects of knowledge must 
be supposed to be real. In construing this order of representa- 
tion the “subtle doctor” seems to have assumed that, corre- 
sponding to the names of genera and species, there are ob- 
jectively subsistent forms, prior in the order of generation to 
the individual, and constituting a nature which without detri- 
ment to its unity may be in any number of individuals. 
“Universal natures,” says Stockl in exposition of Scotist doc- 
trine, “would exist, even if the understanding which thinks 
them should not exist. . . . Universal natures are consti- 
tuted through the union of the generic and the specific form, 
and these forms present themselves to the understanding as 
objects located in nature itself, objects which are independent 
of the act of thinking on the part of the understanding.” 
Scotus may have said some things which look in the direction 

10tto Willman, Geschichte des Idealismus ii, 386, 387. The following 
is a part of the statement of Aquinas: Cognoscentia a non-cognoscentibus 
in hoc distinguuntur, quia non-cognoscentia nihil habent nisi formam 


suam tantum, sed cognoscens natum est habere formam etiam rei alte- 
rius; nam species cogniti est in cognoscente. 


“Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, ii, 789. 


606 APPENDIX 


of a modification of this decisively realistic teaching, but it 
must at least be admitted that realistic doctrine finds very 
congenial ground in his representations.’ 

In the fourteenth century a distinct revolt against realism 
was inaugurated by William Occam and his school. The 
Occamist teaching has been styled “nominalism;’ but it is 
a fair question whether it would not be more justly denom- 
inated “conceptualism.” For a time it ruled a good part of 
the ecclesiastical domain. Realism, however, was not effec- 
tually displaced. In a general view it appears as a prominent 
element in medizval scholasticism. Even in quarters where 
it was not inculcated in the most open and unequivocal manner 
there was a tendency to admit more or less of its implications. 

If now we inquire respecting the merits of the realistic 
doctrine which formed so conspicuous a factor in scholastic 
thinking, we are compelled to pronounce it philosophically 
unsound. There is absolutely no rational warrant for the real 
objective existence of universals, and all the analogies which 
are pertinent to the subject are distinctly opposed to such ex- 
istence. Suppose there were in the mind of God from eternity 
generic and specific patterns of things to be made, what con- 
nection could these have had with real subsistence? Analogy 
would lead us to say, not a whit more connection than a rule 
of action has with the act which it forecasts, or a picture with 
the object which it represents. A man purposing to make 
clothespins and ball clubs naturally fashions in his mind pat- 
terns of these things. What relation in such a case do the 
patterns hold to the things? Just simply that of antecedent 
thought-forms. They stand for a purely subjective mental 
function. They are in the mind and of the mind, and can no 
more get out of the mind into the things in any real sense than 
a part of the mind can be cut off and inserted into a lump 
of matter. The things correspond in certain respects to the 
patterns, because the will uses the patterns as standards or 

1Stockl, Hauréau, and Willmann agree in the conclusion that in the 
Scotist formalism a very considerable approach was made to the Platonic 


hypostatizing of universals. Some other interpreters have understood 
Scotus in the sense of a less pronounced realism. 


SCHOLASTIC REALISM. 607 


rules of action in making the things. In no proper sense are 
the mental patterns moved into the things, or made to reside in 
them, or to serve as a constitutive element of their being. 
The being of the things is due to the shaping, energizing will— 
the mental patterns serving simply as the rational antecedent, 
the governing rule for the agency of the will which effectuates 
the things. Such is the dictate of any analogy to which we 
can appeal. Out of the range of finite experience we can get 
no warrant whatever for the making of any supposed ideas 
or patterns in the divine mind anything more than rules of 


procedure for the creative divine will. For aught we know 
there may be in the divine mind ideas which serve as the 
rational antecedents of things; there may be even ideas of as 
general a cast as one may be pleased to imagine; but that 
these ideas enter literally into the being of things, or are to 
be credited with any sort of objective or extra-mental sub- 
sistence, with any subsistence other than purely conceptual, 
there is no reason to suppose. It is slipshod thinking which 
ignores or minifies the gulf between the mere notions of things 
and things themselves. 

But it will be asked, is it not true, as Plato and Aristotle 
assumed, that individuals are known through universals, and 
that the objects of genuine knowledge must be supposed to 
be real? This is to be granted. If we look carefully, however, 
at the import of the facts in question, we shall find no justifica- 
tion therein of the realistic doctrine. To say that individuals 
are known through universals is simply to say that nothing is 
known in the way of absolute isolation, but rather in the way 
of connection or comparison with the known. Having on 
hand, as understood categories, such general or class terms 
as “animal,” “rational,” “volitional,” ‘moral,’ “spiritual,” 
“corporeal,” “mortal,” and “immortal,” we proceed to define 
a given individual that is introduced to our attention by apply- 
ing to the same these terms or as many of them as are suitable 
to the case. What does that signify? That the individual 
is veritably compounded of universals corresponding to the 
list of general terms mentioned? Nothing of the sort. It 


608 APPENDIX. | 


signifies merely that the individual is capable of being viewed 
in class relations and is defined to our minds by being so viewed. 
Intrinsically he may be individual in every atom of his being; 
yet, if he has points of resemblance to other individuals, he 
can be set in relation to them on the score of these points 
of resemblance—in other words, be associated with them under 
class terms. The resemblances being real, the act of association 
or classification is not arbitrary, but correspondent to fact. 
The Platonic and Aristotelian propositions under considera- 
tion reduce, therefore, to this: The individual is defined to 
our thought by being viewed in class relations, and a genuine 
basis for so viewing him’ (or it) is supplied in his actual 
resemblances to other individuals. In the individual there is 
and can be nothing universal. Rationality in John is purely 
John’s capacity for rational activity. But in so far as John is 
rational, he has a distinct resemblance to James and Nathan 
and the rest, and so in the comparing mind can be brought 
under a common designation with them. ‘The universal is 
a matter of concept or mental representation. Conceptualism 
must be pronounced the true theory, it being at the same time 
understood that the concept expressed in a general term is not 
arbitrarily formed, but has respect to actual resemblances of 
individuals. 

Using language with customary freedom, one may indeed 
speak of ideas as being immanent in things. As a matter of 
fact, philosophical writers who confess no allegiance to scho- 
lastic realism are not unaccustomed to define the continuous 
identity of changing things by saying that through all their 
changes they remain true to their immanent ideas. The lan- 
guage is excusable, but of course in strictness there are no 
ideas in the things. What is meant is that the shaping and 
conserving power back of things secures their conformity 
throughout their history to certain types or patterns. 

Scholastic realism may be credited with a certain service in 
emphasizing the truth that knowledge rejects the isolation of 
its objects, and that in the great system of reality there are 
means for something more than an arbitrary association or 


THE THEORY OF IDEAL PREEXISTENCE. 609 


grouping of objects. In its characteristic tenet, however, it 
appropriated from antique philosophy products of immature 
thinking. The doctrine of the real existence of universals is 
an unmanageable figment. The theologian will exhibit wisdom 
in excluding from his system anything which rests upon the 
realistic postulate as a necessary basis. 


LV 


THE THEORY OF A MERELY IDEAL PREEXIST- 
ENCE OF CHRIST. 


OccaSIONALLY in recent times a writer on biblical topics 
has attempted to make over the doctrine of Christ’s preéxist- 
ence into the theory of His prior subsistence simply in divine 
idea and purpose. The notion that the New Testament con- 
cedes any proper standing-ground to this theory belongs so 
unmistakably among the eccentricities of theological thinking 
that it calls for only a brief consideration. The substance of 
what needs to be urged may be presented under three or four 
heads, as follows: 

1. The neutrality of the synoptical Gospels on the theme is 
not to be taken as proof that faith in a real preéxistence of 
Christ was not current among the apostles at a comparatively 
early period. The scope of those writings, attempting as they 
did a simple reproduction of the earthly career of the Messiah, 
narrowed quite distinctly the occasion to introduce the topic 
of preéxistence. Being allied with a theological rather than 
with a purely historical interest that topic stood aside from 
their controlling aim. Doubtless it might have been intro- 
duced in some reported word of the Master, and its absence 
can be taken as evidence that it did not figure prominently in 
His public utterances. But the non-appearance of an item in 
the brief and imperfect narratives of the first three evangelists 
is not a sure indication that it was not recognized implicitly 
or explicitly at one point or another in Christ’s discourses. 
Much less is it a sure indication that it was not entertained in 


610 APPENDIX. 


the thought and conviction of the apostles at a relatively early 
stage. As the confession of Peter shows, even during the 
earthly life of Christ they had reached the conception that 
in an extraordinary sense He was the Son of God. The 
resurrection and the marvelous display of divine power on 
the day of pentecost mightily reinforced that conception. 
Thinking thus of Christ as in an extraordinary sense the Son 
of God, they evidently were in close mental conjunction with 
the idea of His personal preéxistence. That this idea was 
actually embraced and held by them is strongly evidenced by 
the contemporary teaching of Paul—a teaching perfectly un- 
equivocal, as will be shown presently, in its assumption of 
real preéxistence. Even if Paul had possessed the boldness 
to sound a dissenting christological note in the presence of 
those who had been the personal companions of Christ,’ it 
is not probable that he would have treated the doctrine of 
preéxistence as an accepted postulate, needing no word of 
commendation, had he been conscious of standing apart in this 
matter from the apostolic brotherhood. The sober inference 
is that by the middle years of the first century, and probably 
at an earlier point, the thought of Christ’s personal preexist- 
ence had the right of way among the responsible teachers of the 
Church, including those who were the principal channels for 
transmitting the history contained in the synoptical Gospels. 
2. So plainly do the Epistles of Paul, the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, and the Apocalypse assume the real preexistence of 
Christ that exegesis goes on a fool’s errand when it attempts 
1Too much account is not to be made of Paul’s declaration to the 
Galatians that he received his gospel by revelation, as though this state- 
ment was designed to cover the whole range of Christian doctrine. Doubt- 
less what the apostle meant to assert was his indubitable conviction of a 
divine commission to proclaim to the Gentiles a message, or “gospel,” 
of grace and emancipation, as opposed to a scheme of legal bondage. 
To read into his words a wholesale affirmation of dogmatic independ- 
ence is entirely unwarrantable. In this same epistle Paul has informed 
us that early in his Christian course he took pains to have a fifteen days’ 
conference with Peter; and in other connections he has given evidence 


of a disposition to consult the primitive Christian tradition. (1 Cor. vii 
10; xi. 23; xv. 4-7.) 


THE THEORY OF IDEAL PREEXISTENCE. O11 


to reduce their teaching to the thought of a merely ideal pre- 
existence. Take the words of Paul in Phil. ii. 5-8, descriptive 
of recession from a divine form to the form of a servant. Is 
it to be supposed that the apostle could have imagined that 
a description of that sort could be made to fit an abstraction? 
He was evidently endeavoring to picture the maximum instance 
of the spirit of self-renunciation, and he found that instance 
in the voluntary exchange, by the Son of God, of an estate 
of glory for an estate of humiliation. On the theory of nothing 
but an ideal preéxistence the incarnation could have expressed 
absolutely no thought, volition, or purpose of its subject, and 
so, of course, could not rationally be used to exhibit Him as 
an example of the spirit of self-renunciation. No more can 
the same theory be made to harmonize with the parallel repre- 
sentation in 2 Cor. vili. 9. Surely Paul could never have 
dreamed of picturing any transition in the earthly life of 
Christ as an exchange of wealth for poverty. The obscure 
home in Nazareth was no palace of luxury. The apostle’s 
representation is pithless save on the assumption that a heavenly 
estate preceded the earthly lot of Christ. Quite as little does 
Paul’s language satisfy any rational demand of speech, if it 
be concluded that his thought admitted only a conceptual pre- 
€xistence in the mind of God when he said of Christ: “In 
Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, 
things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or domin- 
ions or principalities or powers; all things have been created 
through Him and unto Him; and He is before all things, and 
in Him all things consist.” Passages testifying with equal 
distinctness to faith in real preéxistence are contained in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews ;* and the Apocalypse gives an unmis- 
takable indication of the like belief. 

A token that a fair exegesis can not escape the conclusion 
contended for above, is found in the fact that critics who pay 
scanty respect to the trinitarian dogma are very positive in 
maintaining that the assumption of the real preéxistence of 





ICol. i. 15-17. 
*Heb. i. 2, 3; x. 5-7. 
SRev, i. 17, 18; iii. 14; xxii. 13. 


612 APPENDIX. 


Christ underlies this whole list of writings. Here belong such 
New Testament scholars as Holtzmann and Pfleiderer.’ Es- 
pecially worthy of notice is the admission of Beyschlag. 
Though minded to attenuate as far as possible the scriptural 
testimony to a real preéxistence of Christ, he was compelled to 
grant that several of the New Testament writers, being im- 
perfectly schooled in the distinction between conceptual and 
real existence, predicated the latter of the pre-incarnate Christ. 
“Paul thinks,” he says, “of a real intermediate being between 
God and the world, in whom the world already exists in possi- 
bility, the firstborn of every creature, in whom alli things were 
created.” The same point of view he finds represented also 
in the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews. “The author 
of the Apocalypse,” he says, “like Paul and the author of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, regarded Christ as a preéxistent in- 
termediate being between God and the world, God and hu- 
manity, related to 6 6es as his unique image, and to the 
world and humanity as a personal archetype, and who, after 
mediating the creation of the world, appeared among His 
brethren in the fullness of the times as a child of man and 
offspring of David, in order to gain an eternal kingship over 
them as Saviour by His life, death, and resurrection—in a word, 
the author of the Apocalypse united the Logos idea with the 
idea of Messiah realized in Jesus.’* In consideration of the 
very pronounced dogmatic preferences of Beyschlag, these 
words must be regarded as a striking tribute to the compelling 
force of New Testament data. 

3. There is reason for concluding that the same thought 
of preéxistence which is mirrored in the Pauline: Epistles, the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse was back of the 
composition of the First Epistle of Peter. This is the judg- 
ment of Holtzmann, Pfleiderer, and Von Soden. The lan- 


81-87, 251-253, 296, 297; I. 469-472. Otto Pfleiderer, Der Paulinismus, 
pp. 111-117. Das Urchristenthum, pp. 349, 350, 630-633. 


New Testament Theology, ii. 84. 
‘New Testament Theology, ii. 380. 


ees 


THE THEORY OF IDEAL PREEXISTENCE. 613 


guage of the epistle, it may be granted, is not very explicit, 
but it is certainly suggestive of something more than an ideal 
preéxistence. Christ is described as one “who was foreknown 
indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested 
at the end of the times for your sake.”* Now manifestation 
is most naturally affirmed of a subject conceived to be already 
existing in an invisible sphere. There is therefore a hint here 
that the author thought of a preéxistent Christ, and this hint 
is supported by the representation, in a preceding verse (i. I1), 
that the spirit of Christ wrought in the Old Testament 
prophets. 

4. With the same distinctness as the Pauline Epistles, the 
fourth Gospel teaches the real preéxistence of Christ. No one 
could have written as the author of that Gospel wrote except 
under the motive-power of a positive and unwavering belief 
in the real preéxistence of his Lord. Observe the manifold 
ways in which this belief is evidenced. The Word which was 
in the beginning and universally operative in the work of 
creation is declared to have become flesh and to have dwelt 
among men. John the Baptist is represented as saying of the 
Christ, “He was before me.” Of Himself Christ affirmed: 
“No man hath ascended into heaven but He that descended 
out of heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.” 
“He that cometh from above is above all. . . . What He 
hath seen and heard of that He beareth witness.” “The bread 
of God is He that cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life 
unto the world.” “Not that any man hath seen the Father, 
save He which is from God He hath seen the Father.” “What 
then if ye shall behold the Son of Man ascending where He 
was before.” “Before Abraham was I am.” “Glorify me with 
Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before 
the world was.” 

The collective force of these statements is simply invincible, 
and one and another of them taken separately make a sorry 
task for the critic who would eliminate the thought of real 


1y Peter i. 20. Compare Heb. ix. 26. 
John i. 1-14, 16, 30; iii. 13, 31, 32; vi. 33, 46, 62; viii. 58; xvil. 5. 


40 


614 APPENDIX. 


preéxistence from the fourth Gospel. For instance, how on 
the supposition of a purely ideal preéxistence can Christ be 
said to have dealt honestly with the Jews in making such an 
affirmation as is recorded in vill, 58? His Jewish interrogators 
understood a preceding statement to imply logically that He 
was contemporary with Abraham. Instead of correcting their 
inference He approved it, or rather transcended it by explicitly 
affirming an antiquity superior to that of Abraham. Who 
can imagine that the evangelist designed to represent Him in 
this saying as merely throwing dust in the eyes of His oppo- 
nents, by using terms in a sense foreign to the occasion? Again, 
it is quite over-taxing to expel the thought of a real preexist- 
ence from xvi, 5. It has been alleged, indeed, that inasmuch as 
Christ asks for glorification as a reward for the faithful ful- 
fillment of His mission, it could not have been His by right of 
original position. But this reasoning rests upon an arbitrary 
premise. Nothing in the context enforces the conclusion that 
Christ asks for glorification simply and solely as a reward for 
fidelity. In His perfect filial submission He recognized that the 
times and the seasons were in the Father’s hand. It seemed 
to Him that His work was approaching a consummation, so 
that soon the state of humiliation might properly give place 
to the state of exaltation. Very naturally, therefore, He gave 
expression to the aspiration by which His spirit was upborne. 
So far from standing in the way of His confident request, the 
perfection of His title to heavenly glory gave all the freer 
scope to His communion with the Father respecting His in- 
vestment with that glory. Once more, it has been urged that 
the glory to which Christ looked may be compared to the 
treasure reserved in heaven for believers, or to the kingdom 
prepared for the faithful from the foundation of the world; 
and that consequently it is only a conceptual preéxistence with 
which we are here confronted. But this way of arguing over- 
looks the broad difference between the things brought into 
comparison. It is one thing to conceive of a treasure, a sphere 
of glory, a heavenly kingdom, as standing ready for foreor- 
dained subjects. It is another thing to say of a given subject 


ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS, 615 


that he possessed or enjoyed that glory or that kingdom before 
the world was. A statement of the latter order is never made 
in the New Testament respecting God’s redeemed children. 
Christ’s reference to a glory which He had with the Father 
before the world was stands apart from and in antithesis to 
any scriptural language ever applied to the simple human heir 
to a prepared estate. 

The general plea that personification was congenial to the 
Jewish mind of that era, and that a Platonizing estimate of 
ideas was rife, has far too little weight to offset the concurring 
representations in the fourth Gospel which speak for faith in 
real personal preéxistence. Writers of the first century were 
not blind to the distinction between preéxistence in idea and 
preéxistence in fact. If some of them did not always make 
as wide a chasm between the two as subsists in our thought, 
they were still cognizant of the difference between the mere 
idea of a person and the actual person.. No known fact in any 
wise authorizes us to think that a writer, as self-consistent as 
was the author of the fourth Gospel in the use of language 
adapted to picture real preéxistence, meant to picture anything 


less. 
V. 


SOME, ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 
I. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 


A LIFE-UNION of one man with one woman is unmistakably 
_the biblical ideal of marriage. In the Old Testament, it is 
true, a degree of tolerance is manifest for polygamy. But this 
tolerance is quite another thing than positive approbation. The 
reflective thought and higher religious feeling of the ancient 
oracles unequivocally favor monogamy. ‘The first man is rep- 
resented as provided by divine arrangement with a single 


spouse, and the divinely initiated plan for him is set forth as 
a model for all time, the description in the given connection 


implying that the conjugal bond in general means the union 
of one man with one woman. In the wisdom literature every 


‘Compare Dalman, The Words of Jesus, p. 299. 


616 APPENDIX 


reference to the domestic ideal implies monogamy, and the 
same may be said of the whole body of the prophetical litera- 
ture. Unless, then, one is minded to magnify the tolerated 
exception, and to overlook the ideal which emerges from the 
Old Testament religion as a whole, he can find no substantial 
basis for polygamy in the ancient oracles. 

The teaching of the New Testament contemplates no other 
form of the marriage relation than that of monogamy. Its 
whole point of view is perfectly conformable to the words in 
which Christ summed up the essential import of the institution 
of marriage, “they twain shall become one flesh.’”” Moreover 
the premium which the New Testament places upon the ethical 
as opposed to mere physical preeminence, the crown which it 
awards to the virtues in which women are indubitably equal 
sharers with men, its declaration that artificial distinctions 
are abolished through Christ—all this is utterly incompatible 
with the signal disparagement and degradation of women which 
are inseparable from polygamous customs. A civilization 
rationally based in the New Testament could not fail to reckon 
monogamy among the simple decencies. It inevitably becomes 
the ideal as the barbaric deification of physical force recedes. 
Nothing but the barbaric standard could ever sanction a ré- 
gime which makes woman the victim of man’s caprice, and 
places her under the odious liability of being compelled to 
take up with a fraction of a husband. 

If the biblical revelation as a whole enforces the monog- 
amous ideal, it also makes strongly for the integrity and 
permanence of the marriage relation. A very considerable 
degree of facility for divorce may have been granted to the 
husband under the Old Testament régime. But in the New 
Testament the point of view is quite accordant with the best 
prophetical sentiment as it comes to expression in the words 
of Malachi, “I hate putting away, saith the Lord, the God of 
Israel” (ii. 16). Christ took pains to characterize the license 
granted under the Mosaic legislation as an accommodation to 


IMatt. xix. 5,6; Mark x. 8. 


ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 617 


abnormal conditions, and plainly indicated that under the new 
order which He was commissioned to introduce a closer ad- 
hesion to the ideal of marriage as a life-union must be main- 
tained. According to the report of His words in Mark and 
Luke, He made no provision whatever for divorce.’ In 
Matthew’s text, on the other hand, He grants a single ground 
of divorce, namely, zopvefa, fornication, illicit connection of 
the wife (or husband) with a third party. This ground of 
exception makes it impossible to claim biblical authority for an 
absolute prohibition of divorce. One may indeed make the 
critical conjecture that the second and third evangelists give 
the truer version of our Lord’s teaching; but a conjecture 
which is incapable of verification can not nullify the virtue of 
the fact that one of the evangelists places Christ on record as 
admitting a ground of divorce. The certain assurance which 
alone would justify an appeal to His authority for a total ex- 
clusion of divorce is under the historical conditions unattain- 
able. And by divorce in Matthew’s sense must be understood 
an absolute separation, with the right, at least of the innocent 
party, to remarry. Roman Catholicism, it is true, attempts 
to reconcile with Matthew’s statement its own prohibition of 
all absolute dissolution of marriage by making a distinction 
between separation quoad vinculum and separation quoad 
thorum, and construing Matthew’s text as legitimating only 
the latter. But this is a refinement entirely foreign to the 
conditions under which the words of Christ were uttered. To 
Jewish minds “the putting away” (droAvev) could mean 
nothing less than the abrogation of the existing marriage. 
That the form of statement conveyed, or was meant to convey, 
any thought of separation merely as to cohabitation, there is 
no reason to suppose. 

While the Gospels mention only one valid ground of di- 
vorce, the words of Paul in 1 Cor. vii, 15 can be understood 
as admitting a second. He says that where the unbelieving 

IMark x. 5-12. Luke xvi. 18, 
*Matt. v. 32; xix. 9. 


618 APPENDIX. 


(or non-Christian) partner is unwilling to live with the be- 
lieving partner, a separation may ensue by the withdrawal of 
the unbelieving partner. “The brother or the sister is not 
under bondage in such cases.” It may be contended, indeed, 
that Paul did not in this relation contemplate absolute divorce, 
that he meant to teach, not that the deserted partner should 
be free to contract a new marriage, but that this partner should 
not be burdened with the task of trying to keep up a practical 
union in face of the known purpose and deed of the deserting 
partner. This may be a possible interpretation, but it is not 
the more natural one. It is placed at a discount by the obvious 
powerlessness of the deserted party to keep up the union. 
Those addressed by Paul hardly needed to be told that they 
were not under bondage to attempt the impossible. Then, too, 
a comparison with Rom. vii. 2 ff. suggests that the “not being 
under bondage” meant in the mind of the apostle a possible 
release equivalent to that resulting from the death of the un- 
believing partner. Perhaps the apostle found a reason for not 
being more specific as to the rights of the deserted partner in 
the fact that the temper and conduct of the deserter might 
involve different degrees of hopelessness as to the possibility 
of reconciliation. This much, then, results from the data: 
There is no means of establishing the conclusion that Paul 
admitted only one ground of divorce, and the probability is on 
the side of the supposition that he counted desertion, under 
conditions giving no rational hope of remedy, as an adequate 
ground. 

If this contention holds, it is difficult to escape the path 
taken by many eminent exegetes and writers on ethics, who 
prefer to see in the gospel precept on this theme a general 
principle rather than a clearly defined law. We are directed to 
the conclusion that it was not so much the intention of Christ 
to limit divorce absolutely to the specific ground of marital 
infidelity, as to impress the truth that nothing short of a willful 
abuse of the marriage relation so extreme as to nullify its 
purpose and to be practically intolerable, nothing that could 
not rationally be regarded as the equivalent of the contempt 


ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 619 


expressed: for the marriage bond by adultery, could justify its 
dissolution.’ 

Of course the individual Christian ought to count himself 
obligated to the highest ideal. He cannot consistently enter the 
marriage relation without purposing to cultivate a charity which 
is ready to endure all things short of complicity in that which 
is repugnant to the law of God. The ecclesiastical standard, 
as governing those who confess obligation to a common faith, 
may properly approximate to that which is enthroned in the 
conscience of the enlightened Christian. The ecclesiastical 
body, however, has to consult for the total religious and moral 
good of its members, and so will need to consider very seriously 
whether a rigor which is most worthy of the election of the 
individual can be enforced throughout a given constituency 
with favorable results. When it comes to the more complex 
sphere of the State, the demand for serious consideration of 
the general outcome is increased. Lax divorce laws are un- 
doubtedly instruments of social corruption, very decidedly 
prejudicial to the dignity of the family. But, on the other 
hand, law has no omnipotence in itself to create domestic 
virtue, and extra rigor in maintaining the indissolubility of 
marriage may enlarge the temptation to certain forms of crim- 
inality. ‘The legislator, dealing with a heterogeneous mass, 
many of whom confess allegiance neither to biblical nor to eccle- 
siastical authority, will need to consider not merely what would 
be the rule in an ideal society, but also what under the existing 
conditions is feasible and likely to be promotive of social health 
and purity. 


Il. SuNDAY OBSERVANCE. 


The relation of Sunday observance to any sabbatical institu- 
tion in pre-Mosaic time falls rationally out of consideration, 
since there is no substantial evidence of the existence of such 

1Compare Kostlin, Christliche Ethik, pp. 606, 607; Martensen, Chris- 
tian Ethics, Social, pp. 42-44; Dorner, System of Christian Ethics, pp. 


540-545; Bowne, Principles of Ethics, p. 239; Newman Smyth, Christian 
Ethics, pp. 413, 414; Pateson, Hasting’s Dict. of the Bible, III. 275, 276. 


620 APPENDIX. 


an institution. Doubtless the division of time into intervals of 
seven days was more or less current in remote antiquity, being 
readily suggested by the phases of the moon. It had a certain 
recognition among the Babylonians, and very likely also among 
the forefathers of the Hebrew nation. But of a day distinctly 
sabbatical in character and hedged about by religious sanctions 
the Bible gives us no information in connection with the period 
in question. It is stated indeed that in the thought of God a 
ground for hallowing the seventh day was furnished in the 
fact of rest from the work of creation on that day; but it ts 
not stated that this divine thought was made a ground for any 
immediate publication of an obligation to keep holy the seventh 
day, and there is no hint of such publication having occurred 
before the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. A distinct 
sabbatical institution, which is capable of being regarded as 
an antecedent of the Christian’s Sunday or Lord’s-day, first 
meets us on the field of biblical history in the Mosaic age. 
There is no possibility of gaining any substantial biblical basis 
for Sunday observance in any law or requirement back of that 
age. This conclusion holds good entirely apart from revised 
views of the composition of the Pentateuch. 

As respects the bearing of the fourth commandment in the 
decalogue upon Sunday observance two extreme views need 
to be avoided. On the one hand is the view which assigns 
to the fourth commandment the value of a perpetual law or 
statute. This is plainly untenable from the Christian stand- 
point. The fourth commandment requires the observance of 
the seventh day of the week. Christians do not, and from the 
beginning have not, with inconsiderable exceptions, observed 
that day. Thus immemorial Christian custom testifies to the 
absence of a proper legal or statutory character in the fourth 
commandment under the Christian dispensation, unless indeed 
the Christian body has been continuously guilty of law-break- 
ing. it has sometimes been thought that the charge of law- 
breaking can be avoided, and at the same time a legal force 
be conserved to the fourth commandment, by resorting to the 
assumption of authoritative amendment. The apostles, it is 


_ 
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in Pe 


ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 621 


urged, under divine guidance changed the day, setting over, 
so to speak, the fourth commandment from the seventh onto 
the first day. The trouble with this assumption is that it is 
thoroughly arbitrary and fanciful. Not only is it without 
positive warrant; it is distinctively contradictory to the his- 
torical data, as will appear from the following facts: (1.) The 
apostolical literature makes no association between the Jewish 
Sabbath and the first day of the week which was honored by 
the early Christians in memory of the resurrection of their 
Lord. An epistle like that to the Hebrews, with all its alertness 
to relate Old Testament symbols to New Testament realities, 
affirms no relation between the Sabbath and the Christian day. 
The symbolical import which it attaches to the Jewish day is 
given another connection. (2.) Apostolic authority in rela- 
tion to the Gentile world is on record as treating the Old Tes- 
tament law, not as amended, but as inapplicable or non-existent. 
The Council of Jerusalem in its enumeration of ancient require- 
ments which Gentile converts ought to observe makes no men- 
tion of the Sabbath law. Paul in his epistles takes pains to teach 
that Christians are not amenable to the Sabbath law of the 
Jews,’ and he does this without interposing a single hint that 
another day than the seventh had fallen heir to its legal claims. 
The whole tenor of his reference to the subject shows the 
preposterous nature of the assumption of a formal apostolic 
amendment of the fourth commandment. (3.) In the patristic 
literature of the first three centuries no sort of an appeal is 
made to the fourth commandment as a sanction for the special 
observance of the first day of the week. This day is treated 
as an independent day, and in some instances care is taken to 
affirm its independent standing.” 

It may be noticed that if the facts of apostolic and post- 
apostolic history disprove the supposition of an authoritative 
amendment of the fourth commandment, they are equally ad- 


1Gal. iv. 9, 10; Rom. xiv. 5,6; Col. it. 16. 


*Ignatius, Ad Magnes. vill, ix; Epistle of Barnabas, xv; Justin, Dial. 
cum. Tryph. xvili, xix; Irenzus, Cont. Haer. iv. 16: Tertullian, Ady. 
Judezos iv., Adv. Mare. v. 4. 


622 APPENDIX. 


verse to the retention of the fourth commandment in its un- 
amended form as obligating to the observance of the seventh 
day. The unavoidable inference from these facts is that for 
Gentile Christianity the fourth commandment was treated in 
the apostolic and post-apostolic age as no longer binding. Only 
by an uncritical blending of dispensations and by a contra- 
vening of the tenor of primitive Christian history can the advo- 
cates of seventh-day observance obtain any standing-ground. 

The contention that the fourth commandment must be re- 
garded as perpetually binding because it forms part of a moral 
code is too superficial to deserve more than a passing word. 
Nobody has been assured by competent authority that the 
decalogue in its entirety is a moral code. Content rather than 
place determines the nature of a law, and judged by its contents 
the fourth commandment is not properly a moral law. It was 
not treated as such by the apostles. It is not asserted to be 
such by the moral sense of men. Nobody blames the heathen 
for not having observed it. Nobody knows that it is binding 
on heavenly society. Nobody knows that it specifies just the 
exact portion of time as an interval of rest which the weal of 
each individual demands, the fact being that the needs of 
individuals differ widely. It is far from being characterized 
by the certainty and uniformity of application which distinguish 
a moral law proper. Plainly it belongs in the field of utility 
as something well suited to the average needs of men, among 
things auxiliary to moral ends, but not in itself entitled to be 
counted a part of the moral law. 

The other extreme to which reference was made consists in 
denying to the fourth commandment any significance for Chris- 
tians except such as may belong to it simply as a relic of an- 
tiquity. This is intemperately and unwisely disparaging. The 
fourth commandment is indeed gone as a statute. But as in- 
folding in itself a great lesson it abides. Teaching emphatically 
the need of a recurring day of rest and religious meditation 
for Israel, it teaches by implication the need of such a day 
for all mankind. In terms of perfect sobriety and fidelity to 
history we might say of the fourth commandment, as respects 


EEE eee eee eee 


ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 623 


its permanent function, it has the worth of a great historical 
precedent providentially designed to supply the general model 
of the Christian week and to teach impressively the need of a 
recurring day of rest and worship. 

What has been said prepares for a statement of the valid 
grounds of Sunday observance. They are chiefly the following: 
(1.) The Old Testament law taken in the character of a potent 
historical precedent as defined above. (2.) New Testament 
fact, namely, the signalizing of Sunday as the special day of 
Christians from the start, the day of religious assemblies,’ the 
day characterized by a holy significance, insomuch that in a 
New Testament writing it is already termed the Lord’s-day.’ 
It is not proved that in fact or by apostolic requirement it 
was treated at first as a strictly sabbatic day. While the Church 
had no control over the civil legislation, it would have in- 
volved special embarrassment to prohibit all secular engage- 
ments on Sunday to Christian converts. The tenor of post- 
apostolic history unmistakably favors the conclusion that the 
prohibition of Sunday labor was an offshoot of the sacred 
character attached to the day. First the day was accounted 
sacred on the score of its lofty and cheering associations ; and 
then naturally, as the conditions of the empire became agreeable 
to the Christian interest, the sacredness of Sunday was guarded 
by the prohibition of such labors as tended to lower it to the 
plane of other days. (3.) The intrinsic propriety of commem- 
orating the crowning event of the gospel history—the resur- 
rection of our Lord. In that event the New Testament day 
obtains a sanction far more significant and inspiriting than 
that cited for the Old Testament day. (4.) The inference 
from reason and long-continued experience that men, in the 
period of earthly toil and discipline, as physical and as spiritual 
beings, as individuals and as members of communities, need 
a day which in the whole tenor of its conditions speaks of rest 
and divine communion. 

As respects the keeping of the day, it is impossible to give 
an exact measure of personal or corporate obligation. The 


1r Cor. xvi. I, 2. *Rey. i. 10, 


624 APPENDIX. 


thoughtful Christian will consider not merely what his con- 
science may permit to himself individually considered, but also 
the demands of wholesome influence upon others. On the 
one hand, he will not place a premium upon enforced dullness ; 
on the other, he will wish to guard the day of specially sacred 
associations from the fuss, tumult, and burden of the ordinary 
secular day. With the legislator the same motive may prop- 
etly be effective which is conspicuous in the Deuteronomic 
version of the fourth commandment. A well devised Sunday 
law safeguards to the laborer the respite which the greed of 
capital too often stands ready to snatch away from him. Such 
a law is legitimated by the same humanitarian interest which 
places legal restriction on the number of hours composing a 
working-day. It is justified also as contributing to the needful 
opportunity for that moral and religious training upon which 
the health of communities and the perpetuity of states is in- 
timately dependent. 


III. TEMPERANCE. 


One who looks for a radical temperance platform in the 
letter of the Scriptures is likely to be disappointed. They 
contain indeed emphatic censures upon all excess in the use of 
intoxicating beverages; but entire abstinence is not formally 
enjoined and at most receives an appreciative mention in con- 
nection with the Nazarites and Rechabites.. The general im- 
pression conveyed by the sum total of scriptural references is 
that in the age of either Testament not so much wine-drinking 
in itself, as excess in wine-drinking, was counted a grave fault. 
This impression, it is true, might be revised in favor of a more 
stringent point of view, if it could be shown that the Scriptures 
take pains to distinguish between fermented and unfermented 
wine, speaking uniformly of the former in terms of disparage- 
ment, and confining all tolerant and friendly references to the 


Deut. v. 14, I5- 

*Prov,; xx, I; XX1il, 29-353, 18a. V.« II, 12; XxVill.'I, 3, 7; pbs vines 
Titus ii. 3; 1 Thess. v, 6-8. 

s3Num. vi. I-4; Amos ii. II, 12; Jer. xxxv. 


ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 625 


latter. But this cannot be done. While the name of “wine” 
appears to be used with sufficient latitude to include the un- 
fermented juice of the grape, no close discrimination is made 
between one kind of wine and another, and any one who 
attempts such discrimination runs a very serious risk of sub- 
stituting imagination and personal preference for facts. It 
lies beyond the province of any exegete to determine that in 
a given instance of a simple reference to the use of wine the 
term denotes nothing but the unfermented product of the grape. 
The most that can be said with certainty is that the biblical 
wines, as deriving their strength from no other source than 
fermentation, were mild in comparison with much of the doc- 
tored wine of these later days. 

While thus the letter of the Scriptures cannot be appealed 
to in behalf of an obligation to entire abstinence from spirituous 
beverages, one has no sort of need to go begging for proofs 
of such an obligation. There is placed before the men of this 
generation such a picture of waste and ruin resulting from 
the drink habit as never met the vision of the biblical writers. 
They saw indeed something of the mischief wrought by the 
use of intoxicants, but all that they witnessed was but a tame 
incident compared to the tragedy which runs through our civ- 
ilization and threatens to cover increasing areas of horror and 
distress. Duty for the modern man must take its measure from 
a sane consideration of this tragedy. In the face of such a 
tremendous issue he does not need to wait for the discovery 
of a literal injunction in oracles written under conditions much 
less acute and tragic. _He needs only principles and readiness 
of heart to apply them according to the rational dictates of the 
situation. And of principles suited to this subject there is no 
deficit in the Bible. On the one hand, the high calling of every 
man in Christ Jesus is a mighty protest against needless ex- 
posure to personal wreckage and slavery under the drink habit. 
On the other hand, the requirement of brotherly consideration 
for those who by temperament and inheritance are very seri- 
ously exposed to the curse of intemperance ought to be a most 
potent summons to self-denying abstinence, even if no personal 


626 APPENDIX. 


hazard should come into the account. When one reflects upon 
the subtle and penetrating power of example there surely needs 
to be no halting inference in his mind as respects the duty of 
entire abstinence. What the apostle said about the use of meat, 
which in the view of scrupulous persons might seem to be 
profaned by its associations, any serious witness of the drink 
plague may well feel compelled to say, with no less emphasis, 
respecting the use of a thing so intrinsically doubtful as an 
intoxicating beverage. 

Obligation as to personal habit and the attitude of the citizen 
toward the traffic in spirituous liquors are things by no means 
indifferently related. But when it comes to restrictive and pro- 
scriptive measures, the practical man will consider what there 
is reasonable hope of accomplishing at one stage and what 
must wait for a later stage. He will find it impossible to ignore 
the claims of a wise opportunism. An abstract logic may cry 
out that, inasmuch as the liquor traffic is fearfully bad, a vote 
for anything less than immediate extirpation involves sinful 
compromise and truckling to iniquity. But the adequate vote 
comes only through education, and when it comes the enact- 
ment to which it is instrumental has permanent virtue only 
through a public conscience continuously keyed up to a high 
pitch. Measures that overreach the existing degree of prep- 
aration incur considerable hazard of harmful reactions. It 
may be a shame for Christian communities to be so slow in 
the work of preparation ; but the goal cannot be reached without 
a thorough discharge of the task of preparation; and that means 
the formation of great constituencies thoroughly permeated 
with stanch temperance sentiment. In the natural order eccle- 
siastical tuition, influence, and restraint must be expected to 
march in advance of civil legislation. An efficient support to 
temperance legislation would indeed be secured if labor organ- 
izations should universally gird themselves for a firm, united, 
and persistent war against the drink curse. But the superior 
burden of responsibility for the sustentation of a vital and 
potent temperance sentiment rests upon the great Christian 


1y Cor. viii. 13; Rom. xiv. 15. 


ETHICO-RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 627 


communions. This responsibility they cannot shirk without 
discounting their vocation to serve as leading instrumentalities 
for the practical realization of the divine kingdom. When all 
the great Churches have fulfilled the demands of a sane tem- 
perance zeal within the bounds of their several constituencies, 
the outlook for effective action by the State will have a fair 
degree of promise.’ 

10n the general theme see Daniel Dorchester, The Liquor Problem 
in All Ages; Alex Gustafson, The Foundation of Death; Norman Kerr, 
Wines, Scriptural and Ecclesiastical. 


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wa 


REVIEW SCHEME. 


Hart I. 
CHAPTER I. 
I. 


1. The ineptness of any unqualified declaration of the impossi- 
bility of knowledge. 2. Reasons for concluding that a unitary 
psychical agent is a necessary presupposition of knowledge. 


It. 


1. Difficulties incurred by radical sensationalism through its 
denial of the unitary agent. 2. Illustration of the shortcomings of 
sensationalism as afforded in John Stuart Mill’s admission. 3. Illus- 
tration afforded by various incongruities in Herbert Spencer’s 


teaching. 
Ii. 


1. The necessity of assuming real agency or activity in the 
attainment of knowledge. 2. Kant’s way of recognizing this 
subjective factor in knowledge, or his doctrine of the categories. 
3. The two factors determining the appearances of things. 


ily 


Reasons for concluding that certainty of knowledge is not seri- 
ously interfered with by the unavoidable intrusion of a subjective 
factor. 

V. 

1. Kant’s position on the question whether the categories, or 
constitutional view-points, have objective validity; in other words, 
whether there is that outside of the thinking subject which corre- 
sponds to them. 2. Reasons for criticising the Kantian position 

629 


630 REVIEW SCHEME. 


relative to this topic. 3. The question whether it is allowable to 
admit distinctions among the categories as respects objective valid- 
ity. 4. The difficulties incident to the claim for the objective reality 
of space. 5. Difficulties belonging to the supposition of the ob- 
jective reality of time. 6. The rule which, in the face of these 
difficult questions, is adapted to secure intellectual confidence. 
7. The highest available criterion of the truth of notions. 


VI. 


1. The connection which the thought of the objective validity 
of the categories has with the supposition that the world is adjusted 
to reason. 2. A special subjective ground for faith in the ration- 
ality of the world-system. | 

Vil. 


1. Importance, for cognition, of the subject-matter supplied by 
inner states and experiences (such as are not directly dependent 
upon sense-perception). 2. Illustration of how the consciousness 
of volitional energy supplies a basis for rational inference. 3. Illus- 
tration of how the experience of certain orders of feelings may 
provide a ground for highly important inductions. 4. Cautions 
which need to be observed in attempts to utilize the feelings for 
the ends of knowledge or valid doctrinal construction. 5. State- 
ment and criticism of Schleiermacher’s theory of the function of 
feeling in religion. 6. The proper conception of the relaticn 
between morality (taken in the broad sense) and religion. 


Vill. 


1. Estimate of the actual force of historical connections in deter 
mining beliefs, and of the benefit resulting from this method o! 
furnishing an outfit to each succeeding generation. 2. The condi 
tions under which, and the extent to which, long-continued persist 
ence of an idea gives it a title to acceptance. 3. The importan 
bearing of a moral element on the attitude toward the historica 
deposit. 

TX. 

1. Considerations which may be urged against the necessity of 

taking a revelation, or collection of oracles, as a strict unity. 


REVIEW SCHEME. 631 


2. The prerogative which, from this point of view, must be accred- 
ited to reason in judging the contents of a revelation. 3. Summary 
of points on the province of reason in relation to revelation. 4. The 
cardinal error of the old Deistic speculation on the relation of rea- 


son to revelation. 
X. 


The way in which the idea of God has an important bearing on 
rational certainty. 


CHAPTER II. 


i, 


Considerations which justify the making of the theme of the 
divine existence antecedent to that of revelation. 


If. 


’ ’ 


1. Definition of the terms ‘‘person’’ and ‘‘infinite’’ as applied 
to God. 2. The mistake involved in denying personality to God 
in the interest of His greatness. 3. Statement and refutation of the 
objection to the personality of the Infinite which is based on the 
supposed requirements of self-consciousness. 


III. 


1. Reasons for reducing the list of anti-theistic theories, which 
call for formal attention, to materialism and pantheism. 2. Points 
of contrast between materialism and pantheism; points of similarity. 


IV. 


1. Illustration of the fact that materialism is not distinguished 
by the narrow range of its necessary assumptions. 2. Illustration 
of the large assumptions characteristic of pantheistic systems. 
3. Conclusion as to the test which these systems must meet if they 
are to earn any valid title to supplant theistic faith. 


Pie 


1. The failure of materialism, whether of the ordinary or of the 
mystical type, to construe the facts of cognition. 2. Other grounds 


632 REVIEW SCHEME. 


of objection to materialism. 3. Extent to which monism can prop- 
erly be associated with materialism. 4. Criticism of the monistic 
theory as presented by Romanes. 5. Grounds of objection to the 
more common form of the monistic theory. 6. Professor Ladd’s 
comment on monism as a metaphysical theory for the relation 
between body and mind. 


VI. 


1. Extent to which the objections against materialism apply to 
pantheism. 2. Grounds of the inability of pantheism to satisfy 
religious needs. 3. A discrimination as to different forms of pan- 
theism. } 

VII. 


1. The great efficiency of factors other than logic or formal 
argumentation in nurturing theistic faith. 2. The view to be 
taken on the question whether proper demonstration of the divine 
existence is possible. 3. Reasons for assigning real value to well- 
ordered proofs of the divine existence. 


VI. 


1. The point of view from which the cosmological argument 
proceeds. 2. Possible objections to the argument and answers 
thereto. 3. Reasons for making the unitary power demanded by 
the argument the source of the being of the world-factors and not 
merely of their relations. 4. The degree to which this argument 
fulfills the requirement of a proof of the theistic conception. 


IX. 


1. The characteristics which the design argument, if valid, would 
require us to impute to the Being who is back of nature. 2. Facts 
in nature which are adapted to give an impression of a designing 
Intelligence. 3. Various expedients which are adopted to evade 
the need of postulating design, and the answers which may be ren- 
dered. 4. The bearing of such a theory as that of ‘natural 
selection’? upon the argument from design. 5. Answer to the 
allegation that evidences of design are signs of the limitation of 
the Creator. 


REVIEW SCHEME. 633 


», 


1. The several points contained in the argument from human 
nature. 2. Reply to the charge that this argument savors of 


anthropomorphism. 
XI. 


1. The alleged deficiency of the foregoing arguments. 2. Con- 
siderations which practically annul the significance of the asserted 
deficiency. 

XII. 

1. Statement and criticism of the ontological argument. 2. Es- 
timate of the Cartesian argument based on the supposition that an 
Infinite Author is needed to account for the idea of God. 3. The 
objections which may be urged against the theory that God is 
known by direct intuition properly so called. 4. Conclusion as to 
the grounds which legitimate theistic faith. 


CHAPTER III. 
Lo 


1. Considerations which approve faith in the possibility of special 
revelations. 2. Reply to the objection that the doctrine of special 
revelations is disparaging to the wisdom of God. 3. The differ- 
ent forms which special revelation may take. 


hr. 


1. Conditions which may rationally be supposed to be imposed 
upon the method of revelation by the nature of cognition and the 
demands of mental integrity. 2. The conditions which similarly 
are imposed by the moral limitations of even superior men. 3. The 
lesson on the probable method of revelation supplied by reference 
to the way in which the interpretation of the natural world has 
proceeded. 4. The proper induction from the given list of 


considerations. 
Ill. 


t. Illustrations from the apostolic history of how the method of 
revelation has corresponded to the rational presuppositions. 2. II- 


634 REVIEW SCHEME. 


lustration from the history of Israel, and from the content of 
the Psalms. 3. Relative prominence of the historical process as 
a medium of revelation. 


IV. 


t. Relation of the full use of the historical process to the preémi- 
nence of the Bible in respect of variety and balance of factors, and 
the proper rating of this preéminence. 2. Illustration of the 
preéminence of the Bible, in the given respect, from the types of 
literature found in the Old Testament. 3. Illustration from the 
framework. of Old Testament theology. 4. Illustration from the 
relation between the two Testaments. 5. Illustration from the 
different classes of writing and types of doctrinal conception in the 
New Testament. 


Vis 


1. The place among the credentials of the Bible which belongs 
to the unique personality of Christ, taken together with the ex- 
traordinary antecedents and consequents of its manifestation in the 
world. 2. Statement of the characteristics exemplified in Christ 
which make Him the marvel of history. 3. Relation of His human 
perfection to warrantable confidence in the sobriety of His self- 
consciousness even in its loftier expressions. 4. Ground for faith 
in the substantial truthfulness of the gospel picture of Christ. 
5. The proper rating of the prophetical forecast of Christ’s person 
and work. 6. Considerations which may be urged in behalf of 
conceding considerable latitude to a typical sense in prophecy. 
7. The great motives which directed the minds of the prophets to 
a Messianic outlook, and the forms under which their hope and 
expectation were given expression. 8. Elements in the remarkable 
picture which supplements the manifestation of the unique person- 
ality of Christ. 


hV ks 


1. The style in which prophecy generally portrays the issues of 
the future. 2. Instances of definite prediction of specific events. 
3. Inference as to the warrant for finding in the facts of prophet- 
ical foresight a token of a divine factor in the biblical revelation. 


REVIEW SCHEME. 635 


Vik 


1. Reasons for rating miracles among possible events. 2. Sense 
in which the term is used in the discussion. 3. The kind of agency 
presupposed in the working of miracles, and the compatibility of 
the use of such agency with a due conservation of the system of 
nature. 4. Conditions or tests of the genuineness and evidential 
value of reputed miracles, and the need of taking these tests 
together. 5. Application of the tests to the gospel miracles, with 
answers to the various forms of challenge brought against the reli- 
ability of the testimony in their behalf. 6. The extent to which 
the given tests apply to the Old Testament miracles. 7. Reply to 
the objection based on the facile multiplication of the stories of 
miracles in the annals of the saints. 8. Evidences for the miracle 
of Christ’s resurrection. (See pp. 581-590. ) 


VIII. 


1. The argument for the Bible which is furnished by the facts of 
Christian consciousness or inward experience. 2. The question 
whether this argument can be made to vouch for the entire Bible. 
3. Answer to a possible objection to the force of the argument. 


IX. 


1. Respects in which a comparative view of ‘‘sacred books’’ 
goes to establish the superiority of the Christian Scriptures. 2. Re- 
ply to the contention that the argument thus constructed falls 
short of accrediting the Bible as containing the ultimate religion. 


X. 


1. The test of canonicity which must be rated as foremost, in 
consideration of the location of the principal evidence for the 
biblical revelation. 2. Secondary tests of canonicity. 3. Facts 
pertinent to the question whether it is possible to secure a perfectly 
definite standard of canonicity. 4. The books of the Old Testa- 
ment which are most exposed to doubt, and the grounds on which 
they have been challenged. 5. The objections which hold against 
the Old Testament Apocrypha. 6. The extent to which the canon- 
icity of New Testament books has been, or is now, matter of 
serious discussion. 


636 REVIEW SCHEME. 


XI. 


1. The bearing of the problem of the authorship of the Penta- 
teuch upon biblical authority. 2. The bearing of such questions 
as the unity of the Book of Isaiah and the date of the Book of 
Daniel upon biblical authority. 3. Extent to which Christian 
dogmatics is under stress to decide such questions. 4. Considera- 
tions which give importance to the question of the authorship of 
the Fourth Gospel, explanation of the contrast between this Gospel 
and the Synoptical Gospels, and the evidences external and inter- 
nal which may be cited in favor of assigning it to the Apostie John. 
5. Critical views respecting the authorship of epistles bearing the 


name of Paul. 
XU 


1. Definition of inspiration, and conclusion as to the proper 
place for discussing the theme in dealing with the Bible. 2 The 
testimony in the Bible to the fact of inspiration, and the question 
how far this testimony avails for the construction of a dogmatic 
theory. 3. Reasons (rational and historical) for believing that 
inspiration, as operative in the biblical writers, was dynamical rather 
than mechanical. 4. The expectation which, from this point of 
view, could justly be entertained as respects the presence of errors 
in the Bible. 5. The evidence furnished by the biblical books on 
the question of errancy, and the bearing of antiquarian research on 
the same question. 6. Considerations which serve to show that 
the presence of errors in the Bible is not necessarily a stumbling- 
block to intelligent faith, or an occasion of nullifying the function 
of the Bible as a standard. 7. Views to be held respecting the 
operation of inspiration in different degrees; respecting its influ- 
ence upon language; respecting the warrant to connect it specially 
with the act of writing ; and respecting its kinship with the enlight- 
ening office of the Holy Spirit in believers generally. 8. The 
approved theory of inspiration as contrasted with competing theo- 
ries, and the terms in which it may be expressed. 


XIL. 


1. Definition of the Christian consciousness, and specification 
of the respects in which alone it is competent to supplement the 


REVIEW SCHEME. 637 


biblical revelation. 2. The question of the competency of church 
authority to supplement that revelation, or to go beyond the de- 
mands of the Christian consciousness in imposing beliefs. 3. Rea- 
sons for concluding that tradition, as defined in Roman Catholic 
dogmatics, can not be appealed to as a trustworthy extra-biblical 
authority, and in fact is not practically depended upon in the 
Roman Church. 4. The capital fault by which Newman’s theory 
of doctrinal development is vitiated. 


Bart II. 
CHAPTER I. 
ts 


1. The logical demand of the preceding positions as respects 
admitting a veritable knowledge of God. 2. Reaction against 
excessive Claims relative to the knowledge of God, and the result- 
ing agnostic doctrine as expressed by Dean Mansel. 3. Points in 
the agnostic teaching of Herbert Spencer. 4. The bearing of 
such teaching on the interests of religion. 5. The fundamental 
error underlying this teaching. 6. Ways in which fathers and 
scholastics affiliated with agnosticism, and grounds for modifying 
their representations. 7. The qualified agnosticism of Ritschl. 
8. The scriptural data on the subject of knowing God, and the 
conclusion to be drawn. 


II. 


1. Classification of the divine attributes. 2. Definition of unity 
and spirituality, with specification of the theosophic modification 
of the latter. 3. The proper interpretation of immutability and 
of omnipresence. 4. The twofold meaning of the eternity of 
God, and the question of His recognition of a temporal order. 
5. A point of common agreement as respects the compass of the 
divine knowledge. 6. The Arminian theory on the divine fore- 
knowledge of the free or contingent. 7. Questionable character 
of the supplement which is sometimes made to this theory in the 


638 REVIEW SCHEME. 


doctrine of the sctentia media. 8. The Calvinian theory of fore- 
knowledge taken in comparison with the Arminian. 9. Estimate 
of the advantages which the doctrine of nescience is supposed to 
have over the Arminian theory, and statement of the objections 
which may be brought against it. 10. The truth expressed in 
the doctrine of the divine omnipotence, and the forms of teaching 
by which it is compromised. 


III. 


1. Obvious grounds for ascribing an ethical nature to God, and 
the import of the term. 2. The compendious expression for the 
ethical nature of God. 43. Discrimination of the meanings per- 
taining to the terms holiness, righteousness, and justice. 4. Ques- 
tion as to the extent of the demands of divine justice, and specifica- 
tion of its relation to punishment. 5. Proper conception of the 
relation between love and justice. 6. Different aspects of divine 
love, its ruling conception, the appropriateness of its expenditure 
upon sinners, and the occasion for a revelation of it over and 
above that contained in nature. 7. Comparison of the two 
Testaments as to their ways of setting forth love and judgment 
respectively. 

IV. 


1. Reasons for affirming indefectibility of God’s moral nature. 
2. The proper conception of the relation of will (in its activity) 
to the ethical nature of God. 3. Union of necessity and freedom 
in God. 4. Relation of the will of God to truth and right. 


CHAPTER II. 
I 


1. The side from which it is best to approach the discussion of 
the doctrine of the Trinity. 2. The reason for including the 
period beyond the New Testament in the historical review. 3. The 
historical evidence for the divinity of Christ as contained in the 
teaching of the fourth century. 4. The historical evidence furnished 
by the third century. 5. The historical evidence furnished by the 
second century. 6, The grouping of the New Testament books for 


ete 


REVIEW SCHEME. 639 


the purpose of taking their evidence in the reverse order. 7. Caution 
against an unwarrantable inference from the application to Christ 
of terms belonging to the human scale. 8. The evidence for 
Christ’s divinity contained in the Gospel and the Epistles of John. 
g. The evidence contained in the Book of Revelation and in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. 10. The evidence contained in the Syn- 
optical Gospels and the Book of Acts. 11. The evidence contained 
in the later Pauline Epistles. 12. The evidence contained in the 
earlier Pauline Epistles. 13. General conclusion respecting the 
New ‘Testament evidence for the divinity of Christ. 14. State- 
ments in the Old Testament which may be regarded as bearing on 
this theme. 
gly 


1. Evidence from the patristic writings as to faith in the person- 
ality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. 2. The scriptural evidence 
for the personality and divinity of the Spirit. 


IIl. 


1. The maximum warrant for the trinitarian theory. 2. Rea- 
sons for rejecting the Arian and Sabellian theories, as also for 
ruling out any form of simple modalism. 3. Question as to 
whether the term ‘‘Son’’ is expressive of a pre-temporal and 
necessary relation. 4. Question as to whether the Scriptures 
afford an explicit ground for the metaphysical conception of the 
procession of the Spirit. 5. Question as to whether it is appro- 
priate to admit a certain subordination of the Son and the Spirit to 
the Father. 

LY: 


1. The compatibility of the trinitarian doctrine with reason, 
and the advantages which it can claim in construing the thought of 
a self-sufficient Being. 2. Inquiry as to the extent of the rational 
grounds which make for a trinality, and not simply a duality, of 
Divine Persons. 3. The proper expectation relative to illustrating 
the trinitarian truth, and the illustration of greatest historical note. 
4. Speculation as to dependence of the divine self-consciousness on 
the trinitarian process. 5. The form of the Hegelian doctrine of 


640 REVIEW SCHEME. 


the Trinity. 6. The limiting notions which belong to the term 
‘‘Person’’ in the trinitarian discussion. 7. Formula for giving 
intelligible expression to the doctrine of the Trinity. 


CHAPTER III. 
I. 


1. The interest dominating the biblical references to the theme 
of creation. 2. The different attempts which have been made to 
conserve a scientific character to the creation narrative in Genesis, 
and the difficulties which they have severally encountered. 3. The 
most eligible conclusion respecting the character of the narrative. 
4. The question whether biblical data favor the ex mihilo doctrine 
of creation (or the doctrine that the Creator made use of no pre- 
existing stuff). 5. Superiority of the biblical standpoint to that of 
pagan teaching. 6. The motive of creation. 


Il, 


1. Limitation of the province of natural science on the theme 
of creation. 2. Bearing of the scientific doctrine of evolution on 
the theistic conception, and also on the subject of man’s dignity 
and destiny. 3. Testimonies of scientists on the latter point. 
4. The principal considerations which may be urged for the fact 
of the evolution of organic nature. 5. The chief factors in evolu- 
tion as recognized by naturalists. 6. Considerations which may 
be urged on the side of objection to the evolution theory, and the 
conclusion which they seem to legitimate. 


IIl. 


1. Reasons on the score of which philosophy may justly incline 
to the conclusion that the world was created ex nthilo. 2. The 
theory taught by scholastic realism of the more pronounced type 
relative to an eternal substratum of things, and the grounds for its 
rejection. 3. The relation of creation to time. 


IV. 


1. Purpose of the biblical references to the theme of conservation. 
z. The reason for distinguishing between creation and conservation. 


REVIEW SCHEME. 641 


3. The question whether any real interest is sacrificed in construing 
impersonal nature as simply the product of a constant divine 
energizing. 

Ve 


1. The inference which the notion of divine conservation enforces 
as to the extent of Divine Providence. 2. Objections to the doc- 
trine of an all-inclusive providence. 3. The best considerations 
which may be urged in reply to the objections. 4. Reasons for 
concluding that God may exercise His providence in special ways, 
and that the scheme of law does not prevent answers to prayer. 


Part III. 
CHAPTER I. 
1. 


1. The feature in which the point of view of the Bible relative 
to the rational creation bears resemblance to its manner of contem- 
plating physical nature. 2. Suggestion as to the extent of the 
rational creation beyond the sphere of men. 


Ii. 


1. Occasion to presume on the presence of popular or pictorial 
elements in the biblical angelology. 2. Periods or stages which 
may be distinguished in biblical angelology. 


hy 


Enumeration of matters more or less clearly revealed respecting 
angels. 
IV. 


1. The extent of the data for determining the time of the crea- 
tion of angels. 2. The most that can be said on the question 
whether angels have bodies. 3. The reasonable conclusion as to 
the relation of angels to time and space. 


042 REVIEW SCHEME. 


Vi 


1. The credibility of the fact of the existence of evil angels. 
2. Instances, real or supposed, of references to Satan and evil 
angels in the Old Testament. 3. Progress in the biblical concep- 
tion of Satan. 4. The way in which the references to the chief- 
tainship of Satan may be understood. 5. Judgment on views 
which deny the personality of Satan. 6. The objections urged 
against the reality of demoniacal possession, and the grounds which 
may be alleged against their conclusiveness. 7. Biblical facts 
which lend support to the supposition that on the theme of demoni- 
acal possession Christ practiced a very considerable measure of 
accommodation. 8. The destiny contemplated in the Bible for 
Satan and his angels. 


VI. 


1. The reason for the divine toleration of the agency of evil 
angels. 2. The suitable attitude of the religious man toward the 
subject of the evil kingdom. 


CHAPTER II. 
I. 


1. The extent to which the Bible attempts to give an anthro- 
pology. 2. The Old Testament method of designating the higher 
nature in man. 3. The New Testament method of designating 
this nature, and the question whether it gives any ground for pre- 
ferring trichotomy to dichotomy. 4. The choice between trichot- 
omy and dichotomy which is favored by rational grounds. 5. The 
estimate which the Bible in general places upon man’s body, and 
the question whether Paul’s characterization of the ‘‘flesh’’ stands 
in contrast with that estimate. 


‘Be 


1. The scriptural assumption as to the ground of bodily death. 
2. Suggestion as to a possible method, in connection with a sinless 
race, of securing immunity from death in spite of natural mortality. 


REVIEW SCHEME. 643 


Iil, 


1. The rational considerations which may be urged in behalf of 
the immortality of the soul, and the degree of their conclusiveness. 
2. The tenor of the biblical teachings on this subject, and the 
explanation of the contrast between the Old Testament representa- 
tions and those of the New Testament. 


LY: 


1. Reasons for not accepting the notion of preéxistence when 
dealing with the question of the origin of souls. 2. Scriptural and 
rational evidences for creationism and traducianism respectively, 
and the grounds which may be urged in behalf of a preference for 
the former. 3. Estimate of the theory which combines the two. 
4. Data bearing on the question of the unity of the race. 5. Data 
relative to the antiquity of the race. 


V. 


1. The elements which conscience, taken in the broader sense, 
includes. 2. Reasons for concluding that each of these elements 
is based in man’s inherent moral constitution. 3. The sense in 
which conscience can be called the voice of God. 4. Substance of 
Paul’s teaching on the subject of conscience. 


vi 


1. The verdict which is naturally drawn from the facts of con- 
science respecting the freedom of man. 2. The main proofs that 
freedom, in the sense of a power of contrary chotce, belongs to man. 
3. The principal objections urged by the determinist against free- 
dom, and refutation of these objections (including that expressed 
in the Edwardean puzzle). 4. Statement of the way in which the 
determinist, or necessitarian, attempts to secure responsibility, and 
exposure of its faultiness. 5. The distinction between formal 
Jreedom and real freedom, and the relation in which they must 
stand to one another in a truly free and responsible creaturely agent. 


644 REVIEW SCHEME. 


6. The question whether there is clear philosophical warrant for the 
possible attainment by a creature of absolute fixity of character. 
7. The proper view on the relation of freedom to power or ability. 


VIl. 


1. Legitimacy of the notion of an original righteousness. 2. Point 
of difference between the scholastics and the Reformers in constru- 
ing this notion. 3. The lack of scriptural warrant for the very 
emphatic views respecting the nature or content of original right- 
eousness which have sometimes been entertained. 


VIII. 


1. Extent to which an explanation of apostasy can rationally be 
expected. 2. Estimate of the Leibnitzian theory on this subject. 
3. Estimate of the theory which finds the explanation of sin in 
man’s sensuous nature. 4. Estimate of the theory which imputes 
sin to one or another form of divine purpose. 5. The question 
whether sin is adequately described as negation or privation. 6. The 
question whether sin in all its forms can be brought under the 
category of selfishness. 


IX. 


1. The amount of reference in the Bible to the Adamic connec- 
tions of human sinfulness. 2. Grounds for concluding that Old 
Testament thought did not assume that the sin of Adam brought 
condemnation, as a birth condition, upon his posterity. 3. Grounds 
for concluding that New Testament (or Pauline) thinking did not 
assume the given result of Adam’s sin. 4. The serious rational 
objections which stand against every form of the doctrine that the 
race incurred guilt or condemnation on the simple ground of 
Adam’s sin. 5. Specific objections to the realistic theory. 6. Ob- 
jections to the theory of immediate imputation. 7. Objections te 
the theory of mediate imputation, as also to a misty form of impu- 
tation. 8. The only sense in which original sin can be affirmed of 
the posterity of Adam. 9. The proper measure of hereditary cor- 
ruption. 10. The proper measure of personal sinfulness. 


REVIEW SCHEME. 645 


Part IV. 
CHAPTER I. 
I. 


1. Scriptural evidences in favor of the conclusion that in the 
incarnation the Son of God assumed human nature in the full sense. 
2. The force of rational considerations and of doctrinal consensus 
on the side of the same conclusion. 


II. 


1. Explanation of the limited extent to which the fact of the 
supernatural conception of Christ comes to view in the New Testa- 
ment. 2. Reasons for believing that the fact as reported in the 
Gospel narratives was based in apostolic tradition. 3. The appro- 
priate rating of the dogmatic import of the supernatural conception. 
4. The standpoint of the New Testament respecting the sinlessness 
of Christ. 5. Judgment on attempts to discredit the fact of Christ’s 
sinless humanity. 6. The chief grounds of faith in the truth of 
Christ’s sinlessness. 7. The religious worth of this truth. 8. The 
question whether temptation is to be regarded as compatible with 
the sinlessness of Christ’s manhood, and with the fact of its unique 
connection with the divine. 9. The theoretical position which it 
seems necessary to take respecting the lability of Christ, in the 
period of trial, to yield to temptation. 


III. 


1, Statement (in brief terms) of the Christological problem. 
2. Considerations which may serve to modify the demand for 
instant solution. 

IV. 


1. The general Christological standard promulgated by the 
Council of Chalcedon, and the sphere for further construction 
which it has been supposed to have left open. 2. The historical 
circumstances under which the doctrine of the communicatio tdioma- 
tum arose, and the import of the doctrine. 3. Reasons for reject- 
ing the doctrine. 4. Statement of the radical doctrine of the 


646 REVIEW SCHEME. 


kenosis in the three principal forms under which it has appeared. 
5. Rating of the scriptural basis for a doctrine of the kenosis. 6. 
Objections which hold against the kenotic theories. 7. Estimate 
of the Ritschlian Christology. 


V. 


1. Preliminary considerations which need to be emphasized in 
in an examination of the grounds of preference for the catholic 
theory of Christ’s person. 2. The main points which may be urged 
in behalf of the catholic theory, as against competing theories, in 
spite of the fact that it is not unburdened with mystery. 3. Indi- 
cation of the extent to which the aspect of dualism may be overcome 
on the basis of the catholic premises. 4. A special way of putting 
the explanation of the appearance of limitations of the knowledge 
of the incarnato Christ. 5. Illustration from kindred topics of the 
fact that we ought not to be surprised at our inability completely to 
solve the Christological problem. 6. Appropriate viewpoint ex- 
pressed by one of the early fathers. 7. Terms which may pru- 
dently be used in a formal Christological definition. 


Viz 


1. Explanation of the exclusive connection with the work of 
redemption which the Bible gives to the incarnation. 2. Consid- 
erations which bespeak tolerance for the theory that in the divine 
plan the incarnation did not hinge altogether upon man’s apostasy. 


CHAPTER II. 
I, 


1. The three offices of Christ, and the sense in which they are 
distinguishable. 2. The degree to which the kingly office was 
manifested in Christ’s earthly career. 3. Distinctive features in 
Christ’s prophetical ministry, and the question as to the spheres or 
regions in which it was fulfilled. 4. The point of emphasis in 
Christ’s priestly office, and the period covered by that office. 
5. The importance, for the Church, of a proportionate stress upon 
the three offices. 


-_ 


sr fe 


ee a, oes eo 


REVIEW SCHEME. 647 


If. 


1. The main ground on which we are to proceed in determining 
the Old Testament doctrine of atonement. 2. Ritschl’s view 
respecting the import of the Old Testament sacrificial system, and 
the reasons for rejecting that view. 3. The part of the sacrificial 
transaction which principally expressed the idea of atonement, and 
the reason given in the Old Testament for locating atoning virtue 
therein. 4. Extent to which the cost to the offerer entered into 
the. estimate of the value of the sacrifice; extent to which the 
gracious appointment of God entered into that estimate. 5. Sum- 
mary of the more essential points in the significance of the sacri- 
ficial ritual. 6. Question whether this significance can be regarded 
as seriously abridged by references to other grounds of divine 
favor, or in consideration of critical theories as to the development 
of the sacrificial system. 7. Conclusion as to the appropriate way 
of construing the sacrificial language of the New Testament. 


III. 


1. List of propositions relative to the work of atonement which 
are clearly warranted by scriptural texts. 2. Some obvious con- 
clusions which spring from a survey of the texts. 3. The preferable 
interpretation of the anguished exclamation of Christ upon the 
cross. 4. The respect in which we may reasonably suppose the 
suffering of Christ to have worth to God. 5. Meaning of the 
“<< objective element ’’ in Christ’s work of atonement. 


IV. 


1. The main points of view in the Socinian Theory. 2. Con- 
ceptions which were central to the theory of Schleiermacher. 3. 
Statement and criticism of Bushnell’s original theory, and the way 
in which this was supplemented in his revised theory. 4. The 
theory of Albrecht Ritschl. 5. Respects in which these theories 


are subject to criticism. 
V. 


1. Statement and criticism of the Swedenborgian theory. 
2. Statement and criticism of the mystical theory. 3. Statement 


648 REVIEW SCHEME. 


of the judicial theory and of the list of objections to which it is 
exposed. 4. The point in the strict governmental theory which 
is exposed to criticism. , 

VI. 


1. The rational objection which holds against the supposition of 
any real antithesis between the Father and the Son as respects their 
relation to the sinful race. 2. The objection to the application of 
a commercial analogy to the subject of atonement. 3. The im- 
portance of giving a due place to the great truths embraced in the 
subjective theories, alongside the recognition of an objective ele- 
ment. 4. Scriptural and rational justification of the assignment 
of a non-temporal character to the atonement as related to divine 
thought and feeling. 5. Reasons for affirming an objective ele- 
ment or aspect. 6. The propriety of giving an objective or God- 
ward bearing to that of which God Himself is the chief source. 
7. Reasons for associating atoning virtue with the whole earthly 
life of Christ. 8. Proper way of dealing with the question as to 
what might have been spared from the actual contents of Christ’s 
ministry. 9. Summary of the principal points in the approved 


theory. 
VIL. 


r. Objections which might possibly be urged against such an 
idea of atonement as is contained in the text, and responses thereto. 
2. A significant admission of Bushnell relative to the practically 
fruitful way of regarding the atonement. 


Hart V. 
CHAPTER I. 


ite 


1. Position taken on the universality of the opportunity to appro- 
priate the salvation provided in Christ. 2. The sense in which 
the Scriptures admit and enforce the idea of election or predesti- 
nation, and the contrast between this sense and that contained in 


REVIEW SCHEME. 649 


the Augustinian or Calvinistic dogma. 3. Reasons for concluding 
that Paul does not teach (either in Romans or elsewhere) predesti- 
nation in the ultra or Calvinian sense. 4. The preferable inter- 
pretation of the Johannine sentences which have sometimes been 
cited in the interest of an ultra predestinarianism. 5. Considera- 
tions which are properly urged against using Mark iv, 11, 12, or 
Acts xiii, 48, in support of unconditional election. 6. The positive 
evidences afforded by Paul and John on the side of the universality 
of the opportunity for salvation. 7. The futility of the attempt to 
reconcile the cordial universality of the gospel call with fixed 
limitation of real opportunity for salvation. 8. The historical 
conditions under which the radical doctrine of predestination 
gained currency, and the comment afforded thereby on the merits 
of the doctrine. 9. The rational objections to the doctrine in 
question. 10. Inappropriateness of an appeal in its behalf to the 
analogy of nature. 
HE. 


1. List of the human conditions of salvation which are mentioned 
in the Scriptures, and the inquiry whether it is necessary to rate 
them all as distinct conditions. 2. Reasons for making faith the 
principal condition, and for annexing repentance and evangelical 
obedience as secondary conditions. 3. The sense in which faith 
may be spoken of as the so/e condition. 4. The meaning of reli- 
gious faith; its proper object; its specifically Christian sense as 
compared with a general theistic sense ; and the question whether 
faith in the former sense is requisite for salvation. 5. The com- 
patibility of the description of faith, given in the text, with the 
definition in the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi, 1). 6. The proper 
conception of the relation between faith and knowledge. 


1g as 


1. Terms expressive of the objective aspect of salvation. 
2. Grounds for concluding that Paul used the term ‘‘ justification ’’ 
in the objective or judicial sense. 3. The sense which Paul probably 
put into the phrase, ‘‘the righteousness of God,’’ when viewing 
the righteousness as a matter of gracious bestowment. 4. The 
place which Paul assigned to faith in the ground of justification, 


650 REVIEW SCHEME. 


and his conception of the way in which it fulfills the justifying 
office. 5. The true putting of Paul’s doctrine of imputation. 
6. The Roman Catholic theory of justification, and the criticism 
which may be passed upon it from the standpoint of Paul’s teaching. 
7. Consideration of the view which makes justification a corporate 
matter rather than an individual one. 8. The sense in which the 
resurrection of Christ may be assigned a place in the basis of justi- 
fication. 9. The point in which the Epistle of James seems to fall 
short of Paul’s teaching. 10. Instructions of Christ in which the 
substance of the Pauline doctrine of justification may be detected. 
11. The philosophical character of the Pauline doctrine, and the 
office which belongs to it in safeguarding the interests of spiritual 
religion. 12. Adoption as related to justification. 13. The sense 
which pertains to adoption in the light of the universal Fatherhood 
of God. 14. The practical value of the doctrine of sonship toward ' 
God in relation to the cause of human brotherhood. 


IV. 


1. Terms expressive of salvation in its subjective aspect. 2. The 
place logically accorded to ‘‘awakening’’ in the economy of grace, 
and the relation to regeneration which is to be assigned to it. 
3. Scriptural representations respecting regeneration. 4. Errors 
to be avoided in defining regeneration, and the elements, taken in 
the order of emphasis, which are to be included in the definition. 
5. The question whether regeneration necessarily involves a marked 
crisis in consciousness. 6. Conversion, or the change effected in 
regeneration viewed from the side of man’s conditioning agency ; 
and the grounds for imputing such agency to man. 7. The scope 
to be assigned to the instrumentality of truth in regeneration. 
8. The compatibility of regeneration with a demand for further 
sanctification, and the grounds for inferring that the subjects of 
regeneration are generally in need of progress in sanctification. 
g. Statement of what may legitimately be included in entire sanc- 
tification. 10. The principal means to be employed in carrying 
forward one’s sanctification. 11. An obstacle which needs to be 
guarded against. 12. Inquiry as to whether valid grounds exist 
for denying the possibility of entire sanctification in this life. 


REVIEW SCHEME. 651 


13. The data of Scripture which have a positive bearing on this 
point, and the induction which seems to be warranted. 


ue 


The true view of the relation between the objective and the sub- 
jective phase of salvation. 


VI. 


1, Reasons for believing that assurance of a filial standing before 
God belongs normally to the subject of regeneration. 2. John 
Wesley’s exposition of the theme of assurance, the possibility of 
improving upon it by putting a larger meaning into the witnessing 
of our own spirit, and the chance to gain thereby the ground fot 
a better view of the ordinary method of the Holy Spirit’s wit- 
nessing. 3. Condensed statement on the mode or process of 
assurance. 4. The only adequate assurance of entire sanctification, 
and the question whether there is sufficient warrant for expecting 
that this form of assurance will be granted. 


VII. 


1. Connection between the regenerate character and the filial 
standing. 2. Statement and estimate of the evidences which bear 
on the possibility of a complete loss of the regenerate character. 


CHAPTER II. 


I. 


1. The reason for placing the topic of the Church after that of 
the personal appropriation of salvation. 2. The New Testament 
employment of the terms ‘‘Church’’ and ‘‘Kingdom.’’ 3. The 
amount of attention given in the New Testament to the religious 
needs and duties of the individual as compared with that bestowed 
on church institutions. 4. Considerations which serve to empha- 
size the importance of the Church. 5. Terms applicable to the 
Church in its ideal character, and the ground for distinguishing 
between the visible and the invisible Church. 6. The point of 
superior emphasis on the theme of church unity. 7. Grounds for 


652 REVIEW SCHEME. 


concluding that the New Testament does not make obligatory a 
particular form of church government. 8. New Testament lessons 
on the appropriate spirit and tenor of church polity. 


Ls 


1. The terms of the Vatican decree on papal supremacy. 2. The 
main points which enter into a refutation of the theory of papal 
supremacy. 3. The relation between the Vatican decree on papal 
supremacy and that on papal infallibility. 4. The province covered 
by the asserted infallibility. 5. The facts and considerations which 
serve to refute the dogma of papal infallibility. 6. The theory of 
the episcopal office represented by High Church Anglicans, and 
the objections to which it is exposed. 


bh 


1. The prominence of the ministry of the Word among the 
functions of the Church, and the sense in which the Church may 
be counted an authentic witness to the truth. 2. The different 
forms under which the ministry of the Word may be fulfilled. 
3. The source of the efficacy of the Word as ministered through 
the Church, and the proper thought respecting the relation of the 
Holy Spirit to the Word. 

IV. 


1. The Christian standpoint on the social function of prayer. 
2. Answers to a possible objection against the objective efficacy 
of prayer. 

v, 


1. The main particulars which are properly included in a state- 
ment of the purpose of the sacraments. 2. Reasons for counting 
the sacraments seals or tokens of God’s benevolent will, and the 
sense in which they are means of grace. 3. Views which have been 
current as to their number. 


Vis 


1. The distinctive import of baptism. 2. Conditions in the 
primitive Church which tended to give baptism a large importance 


alll tags 


i eae: 


REVIEW SCHEME. 653 


and a somewhat intimate association with regeneration. 3. Reasons, 
notwithstanding this order of association, for concluding that Christ 
and the apostles never thought of placing baptism on a parity with 
the great spiritual conditions of salvation. 4. The development 
and installation of the view that baptism is necessary for salvation. 
5. The judgment which must be passed upon sucha view. 6. Esti- 
mate of the theory which makes baptism a source of decisive effects 
in purely passive subjects. 7. The import of infant baptism. 
8. Explanation of the silence of the New Testament on this theme. 
g. The grounds which may be urged in favor of the practice of 
infant baptism. 10. The arguments used in favor of immersion, 
and the considerations which militate against an exclusive claim 
for that form of baptism. 11. The proper classificaton of the 
baptismal rite administered by John the Baptist. 12. The question 
of the admissibility of a repetition of baptism. 


ls 


1. Specifications which enter into a full statement of the signifi- 
cance of the Lord’s Supper. 2. The rise of the doctrine of tran- 
substantiation, and the content of the doctrine as authoritatively 
fixed by the Council of Trent. 3. Considerations which demon- 
strate the gratuitous and irrational character of the vast assumption 
expressed in the doctrine. 4. Objections which stand against any 
form of the doctrine of areal bodily presence in the eucharist. 
5. Objections to the Roman Catholic theory of the eucharistic 
sacrifice. 6. The question whether baptism should be rated as a 
necessary antecedent to participation in the Lord’s Supper. 


VIII. 


1. The constituents of the sacrament of penance, and the char- 
acter pertaining to the absolving sentence of the priest, according 
to Roman Catholic standards. 2. Considerations, rational and 
historical, which serve to refute the theory of priestly absolution. 
3. The admissible and preferable interpretation of the scriptural 
passages which have been claimed in behalf of a priestly preroga- 
tive of absolution. 4. The criticisms which may be urged on the 
score of practical effects, against the confessional with its attach- 
ment of priestly absolution. 


654 REVIEW SCHEME. 


CHAPTER III. 
{. 


1. The propriety of including under the topic of eschatology the 
fortunes in store for the Church as well as those awaiting the indi- 
vidual. 2. The peculiarity of the New Testament forecast as 
compared with the character of the outlook in the Old Testament. 
3. The important eschatological element naturally resident in 
Christian faith. 4. Foreshadowings of the fortunes of the Church 
in this world on the side of progress and victory. 5. Interpretation 
of the reference to the millennial reign, and statement of the view 
relative to a visible reign of Christ upon earth which the New Tes- 
tament representation as a whole enforces. 6. Representations 
respecting trial and conflict as awaiting the Church, and views as to 
the identity of the hostile powers which are depicted. 7. Extent 
to which time measures were regarded in the New Testament fore- 
casts, and the probable explanation of the forms of statement which 
might be taken as implying that Christ predicted the speedy close 
of the dispensation. 


II. 


1. Explanation of the scanty consideration given to the state of 
the dead in the period antecedent to the resurrection. 2. The 
change of view-point effected, in relation to this theme, by the 
progress of the centuries. 3. Grounds for accounting the imme- 
diate state of the dead as one of conscious life, and the necessary 
inference as to its being a state of reward and retribution. 4. Fan- 
ciful and unfounded theories respecting the dead, and respecting 
the interrelations between them and the living. 5. Martensen’s 
speculation respecting the self-inclosed life of the dwellers in the 
other world prior to the resurrection. 6. Considerations which 
may be urged against the possibility of distinct moral transitions 
in the intermediate state. 7. Considerations which are favorable 
to such possibility for certain classes. 8. The tone which reason, 
experience, and revelation alike declare should be characteristic of 
the message addressed to those dwelling in the midst of the expos- 
ures and allurements of sin. 


REVIEW SCHEME. 655 


III. 
1. The grounds for admitting the fact of an intermediate state. 
2. The exegetical expedient which is required for ruling out the 
idea of a special era for the advent and the resurrection. 3. The 
truth which underlies the pictorial representation of the second 
advent. 4. The main particulars included in New Testament 
teaching respecting the resurrection. 5. Grounds for distinguishing 
the resurrection body, in respect of qualities, from the body of the 
present state. 6. The question whether it is necessary to affirm any 
material identity between the body of the resurrection state and 
that of the present life. 7. Reasons for not accepting the supposi- 
tion that Paul revised his view that there is to be a special era of 
resurrection. 8. Estimate of the theory that the resurrection con- 
sists in the disengagement of an ethereal body. 9. The import of 
Pauline and Johannine references to a transformation of nature. 
10. The notable absence of reference in the Epistles of Paul to 
the resurrection of the wicked. 
IV. 


1. The great truth which is lodged in the biblical picture of the 
final judgment. 2. Reasons for not taking the picture in the 
spirit of literalism. 

Mia 

1. Grounds for the conclusion that the teachings in the New 
Testament were designed to convey, as respects the fate of the 
wicked, an impression of irremediable doom. 2. Interpretation of 
the passages which are alleged to make for a contrary conclusion. 
3. The scriptural statements bearing on the question of the anni- 
hilation of the wicked, and the condition in which they leave this 
subject. 4. The force of rational considerations in relation to the 
same subject. 5. The sole philosophical justification of an irre- 
pealable sentence against a man, and the forms of scriptural 
representation that implicitly refer to this ground of doom. 6. Esti- 
mate of the attempt of Thomas Aquinas to furnish a different 
justification. 7. Considerations which tend to modify the somber 
inference as to the number of the lost which might be based on 
the verbal form of a statement of Christ. 8. The ground supplied 
in a filial relation to God for an exalted expectation as regards 
future blessedness, and the elements which may be presumed to 
enter into that blessedness. 


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INDEXES. 





I.— INDEX OF TOPICS. 


Absolution, the assumed prerogative of, 
532 ff. 

Adam as related to the origin of sin, 
311 ff. 

Adoption, 451 f. 

Advent, Christ’s second, 560 f. 

Agnosticism, 3, 38, 159 ff. 

Angels, good, 257 ff.; evil, 263 ff. 

Angel of Jehovah, 211 f. 

Annihilation, as possible fate of the in- 
corrigibly wicked, 573 ff. 

Anthropomorphism, 66 ff. 

Antichrist, 546 f. 

Antiquity, the question of man’s, 287 ff. 

Apocrypha, the Old Testament, 123 ff. 

Apollinarianism, 329 f. 

Apostasy, ground of the possibility of, 
305 ff.; exposure of the converted 
man thereto, 476 ff. 

Arianism, 193 f., 329. 

Assurance, relative to sonship, 469 ff. 
relative to perfected sonship or entire 
sanctification, 474 ff. 

Atonement, Christ’s, 186 f., 360 ff.; 
canons for interpreting biblical lan- 
guage on the subject, 366 ff.; classifi- 
cation of scriptural testimonies, 373 
ff.; general inferences from those 
testimonies, 382 ff.; deficient theories, 
386 ff.; theories exaggerating some 
side or aspect, 391 ff.; views best 
answering to all the data, 401 ff.; 
response to objections, 412 f. 

Awakening, 453 f. 


Baptism, general meaning of, 511 f.; 
relation to regeneration, 512 ff.; ex- 
aggerated stress on the necessity of 





the rite, 514 f.; infant subjects, §15 
ff.; question of mode, 519 ff.; nature 
of John’s baptism, 523; re-baptism, 
523. 

Baruch, the book of, 125. 

Bible, see “ revelation.” 

Body, not disparaged in the Bible, 275 
f.: naturally mortal, 278; doctrine of 
its resurrection, 560 ff. 

Brahmanism, 84. 

Buddhism, 84, 115 ff. 


Canonicity, tests of, 118 ff. 

Categories, 8 ff. 

Certainty, conditions of, 4 ff. 

Chalcedon, council of, 330, 339. 

Christ, uniqueness of His personality 
the great credential of revelation, 90 
ff.; tokens in the New Testament of 
the potency of His life, 100 ff.; proofs 
of His divinity, 192 ff.; His eternal 
sonship, 219 f.; complete humanity, 
325 ff.; supernatural conception, 330 
ff.; sinlessness, 332 ff.; temptation, 
336 f.; problem of His person, 338 
ff.; question whether He would have 
become incarnate but for sin, 358; 
three-fold office, 360 ff.; atonement, 
366 ff.; resurrection, 581 ff. 

Christology, see “ Christ.” 

Church, nature of the, 479 ff.; compari- 
son of its meaning with that of “the 
kingdom,” 480 f.; distinction be- 
tween the visible and the invisible, 
482 f.; true conception of unity, 
483 f.; relation of polity to ecclesi- 
astical legitimacy, 484 f.; normal 
spirit of polity, 486 f.; criticism of 


657 


658 


the Roman Catholic conception, 488 
ff.; criticism of the Anglican High 
Church theory, 500 ff.; foreshadowed 
fortunes for the militant stage in the 
progress of the Church, 540 ff. 

Cognition, rational view respecting its 
method, 8 ff. 

Communicatio idiomatum, doctrine of 
the, 340 ff. 

Confession, as a gospel] requirement, 
435; as prescribed by sacerdotalism, 
§32 ff. 

Confucianism, 115 f. 

Conscience, its elements and authority, 
289 ff. 

Conservation, 246 ff. 


Continuity, historical, as ground of cer-, 


tainty, 24 ff. 

Conversion, 457. 

Creation, according to revelation, 228 ff.; 
according to science, 236 ff; accord- 
ing to philosophy, 244 ff. 

Creationism, 284 ff. 


Daniel, the Book of, 131 f.; apochry- 
phal additions, 125. 

Decretals, the pseudo-Isidore, 495. 

Demoniacal possession, 267 ff. 

Depravity, human, 321. 

Descent into Hades, Christ’s, 262 ff. 

Design, as discoverable in nature, §8 ff. 

Determinism, arguments for, 296 ff. 

Dichotomy, 274 f. 

Disciplina arcana, 152 f. 

Donum superadditum, 304. 


Ebionism, 197, 332. 

Ecclesiasticus, Book of, 125 f. 

Episcopacy, facts relative to the origin 
of, 500 f. 

Eschatology, its content as related to 
the Church militant, 540 ff.; inter- 
mediate state, 551 ff.; second advent, 
560 f.; resurrection, 561 ff.; judg- 
ment, 366 ff.; doom of the wicked, 
569 ff.; the heavenly life, 578 f. 

Esther, Book of, 121 f. 

Eternity, as pertaining to God, 171 ff. 

Eucharist, see ‘‘ Lord’s supper.” 

Evolution, 237 ff. 


Faith, as related to salvation, 434 ff.; 
as connected with repentance, obedi- 
ence, and good works, 436 ff.; defini- 
tion, 438 ff.; function in justification, 
443 ff. 

Feelings, as related to knowledge, 17 


INDEX OF TOPICS. 


ff.; as related to personal religion, 
224, 

Flesh, Pauline sense of the term, 276f. 

Foreknowledge, the divine, 173 ff. 

Freedom, as bearing on warrant for dis- 
tinction between truth and error, 7 f.; 
17f.; 44f.; proofs of its existence 
in man, 294 ff.; the distinction between 
“real” and “ formal,” 301 f. 


Gehenna, 569. 

Gnosticism, 197. 

God, the idea of, as related to intellec- 
tual confidence, 31 f.; proofs of exis- 
tence, 33 ff.; not a subject for demon- 
stration proper, 54; cosmological and 
other arguments, 55 ff.; attributes, 
167 ff.; trinitarian distinctions, 192 ff.; 
agency in creation and preservation, 
228 ff., 246 ff. 

Gospels, critical views as to the origin 
of the Synoptical, 110; evidences for 
the Johannine authorship of the 
fourth Gospel, 133 ff. 


Hades, 569. 

Heaven, 578. 

Hinduism, 115 f. 

History, as basis of the biblical revela- 
tion, 79 ff. 

Holiness, of God, 185. 

Holy Spirit, the, 212 ff., 220 f. 


Immortality of the soul, 279 ff.; 573 ff. 

Immutability, the divine, 169 f.; ques- 
tion of its attainability, in the ethical 
sense, by man, 302. 

Imputation, theories of, in relation to 
original sin, 319 f. 

Inerrancy, not unqualifiedly predicable 
of the Bible, 142 ff. 

Infallibility, papal, 493 ff. 

Infinitude, shown to be compatible with 
personality, 34 ff. 

Inspiration, scriptural, 138 ff. 

Intermediate state, the small account 
made of it in apostolic thought, 551 f.; 
scriptural and rational data as to its 
characteristics, 552 ff.; question as to 
the possibility of moral transitions 
therein, 555 ff. 

Intuition, as related to the proof of the 
divine existence, 72. 

Isaiah, the Book of, 131. 


Jews, temporal restoration of the, 542 f. 
Judgment, the, 566 ff. 


INDEX 


Judith, Book of, 124 f. 

Justice, divine, 185 ff. 

Justification, Pauline doctrine of, 441 ff.; 
points of contrast between it and the 
Roman Catholic doctrine, 446f.; its 


disagreement in one respect with | 


Ritschl’s conception, 448; function 
assigned in Paul’s doctrine to the 
resurrection, 448 f.; extent to which 
the doctrine of the Pauline epistles 
appears in other New Testament 
writings, 449 f.; philosophical char- 
acter and religious value of the doc- 
trine, 451; 
of justification with 


Kenosis, radical doctrine of the, 343 ff. 
Koran, 84 f. 


Law, the Mosaic, 83. 

Lord’s supper, significance of the, 
523 f.; criticism of transubstantiation 
and other forms of the doctrine of a 
real bodily presence, 524 ff.; criticism 
of the notion of the mass or eucharis- 
tic sacrifice, 530 f. 

Love, divine, 184, 187 ff.; as the crown- 
ing excellence in man, 435. 


Maccabees, Books of, 126. 

Marriage and Divorce, 615 ff. 

Mary, the Virgin, 155 f. 

Materialism, 38 ff. 

Millenarianism, 543 ff. 

Miracles, 105 ff., 253. 

Mohammedanism, 85, 116. 

Monism, 47 ff. 

Monophysitism, 339. 

Monothelitism, 353. 

Morality, as related to religion, 23 f.; 
as based in the human constitution, 
65 f. 


Nescience, as attributed to God in re- 
lation to future free acts, 177 ff. 

Nestorianism, 339. 

New Testament, its variety and balance 
of factors, 87 ff. 

Nicene creed, 193. 


Obedience, as related to the appropria- 
tion of salvation, 434, 437; as related 
to Christian growth, 460 f. 

Old Testament, its variety and balance 
of factors, 83 ff. 

Omnipotence, 180 ff. 


OF 


inseparable connection | 
regeneration, | 
468 f.; conditions of forfeiture, 476f. | 


TOPICS. 659 


| Omnipresence, the divine, 170 f, 
Omuniscience, 173 ff. 

| Ontological argument, 69 ff. 

Original righteousness, 303 f. 

| Original sin, 311 ff. 


Pantheism, 38 ff., 50 ff. 
Papal supremacy and infallibility, 488 ff. 

| Pastoral Epistles, 139%. 

Paul of Samosata, humanitarian theory 

| of, 194. 

_ Penance, alleged sacrament of, 531 ff. 

_Pentateuch, question of its authorship 
as related to biblical authority, 128 ff. 

Person, definition of the term, 34. 

Prayer, as related so the providential 
order, 253; as offered for one’s 
fellows, 507 f.; as addressed to saints, 
553f. 

Predestination, extent to which it is a 
biblical idea, 417 ff.; Paul’s teaching 
relative thereto, 419 ff.; John’s teach- 
ing, 424 f., 427f.; teaching of other 
New Testament writers, 425 f.; criti- 
cisms of the Calvinian doctrine based 
on historical grounds, 430 f.; criticisms 
based on rational grounds, 431 ff. 

Preéxistence of souls, 283 f. 

Prophecy, in its general character, 83; 
in its Messianic phase, 95 ff.; in the 
sense of specific prediction, 102 ff, 

Providence, 249 ff. 

Psalms, historical basis of, 81. 
Psychology, shortcomings of the sensa- 
tional, 4 ff. 42; the biblical, 272 ff. 

Punishment, future, 569 ff. 

Purgatory, 553. 











Reason, antithesis between the “ specu- 
lative” and the “practical,” 15 f.; 
adjustment of the world to reason, 
163 its office in connection with reve- 
lation, 27 ff., 149 f. 

| Reconciliation, Christ’s work of, 366 ff. 

Regeneration, 454 ff. 

Religion, as related to morality, 23 f.; 
certified to be native to man, 52 ff. 
Repentance, as condition of salvation 

and religious growth, 434, 436, 460 f. 

Responsibility, conditions of, 299 ff. 

Restoration of the Jews, 542 f. 

Resurrection of the body, 561 ff. 

| Revelation, as related to reason, 27 ff.; 

| its method and credentials, 74ff.; 

question of its sufficiency, 149 ff. 
Rewards, future, 578 f. 
Righteousness, original, 303 f. 





660 INDEX OF SPECIALLY CONSIDERED TEXTS. 


Sabellianism, 194, 217 f. Space, difficulty of construing, 12 ff. 
Sacraments, general view of, 508 ff.; | Spirit, the Holy, 212 ff.; man’s, 273 ff. 
baptism 511 ff.; the Lord’s supper, | Spirituality of the divine nature, 168 f. 
523 ff.; the alleged sacrament of | Sunday observance, 6109 ff. 
penance, 531 ff. Swedenborgianism, its view of anges, 
Sacrifices, the Old Testament system) 261; its theory of atonement, 393 f. 
of, 366 ff.; 
Salvation, universal provision for, 417 ff.; Temperance, 624 ff. 
conditions of appropriation, 434 ff.; Time, difficulty of construing, 14 f, 
possibility of loss, 476 ff. | 174; as related to creation, 246. 
Sanctification, 459 ff.; question of its! Tobit, Book of, 124. 
possible completion in this life, | Tradition, as defined by Roman Catholi- 
464 ff.: question of possible assurance | cism, 151 ff. 
of entire sanctification, 474 ff. | Traducianism, 284 ff. 
Satan, 263 ff.; as connected with sub- | Transubstantiation, doctrine of, 524 ff. 
ject of redemption in patristic thought, | Trent, council of, 524f., 531 f. 
394: as bound for a thousand years, 4 Trichotomy, 274 f. 








544 f. Trimurti, Hindu doctrine of, 226. 
Scientia media, 174 ff. Trinity, the, 192 ff., 590 ff. 
Self-consciousness, 7, 36 f. 

Semi-Arianism, 193. Unity, the divine, 167 f.; race unity, 287. 


Sheol, 281. 

Simplicity, ultra view of, in connection | Vatican council, 488, 493 f. 
with the divine essence, 163 f. 

Sin, considered as to a possible explana- | Will, as ground of rational inference, 
tion, 305 ff.; as to a possible identifi- 17f; as dowered with freedom, 294 ff. 
cation in all its forms with a single | Wisdom, Book of, 125 f., 264, 283. 
principle, 310 f; as to its relation to | Witness to sonship, 469 ff. 


Adam’s trespass, 311 ff. Word, ministry of the, 503 ff. 
Son of Man, 327 f. Works, 437 f. 
Soul, scriptural use of the term, 272 ff.; 

theories of origin, 283 ff. Zoroastrianism, 85, 115 f. 


Il.—INDEX OF SPECIALLY CONSIDERED TEXTS. 


Gen. 1-228 ff)3) 11.5, 18; 19, 234; vi. 2,) John tate, (202, 325 11 toy 2k eee 


4, 265. Hi. '§, 5133) Al. 0,, 2863: /iv. 26); n6ds 
Lev. xvii. 11, 370 f. xii, 32, (592;) xiv. 6, “4053 0xivp ans 
1 Sam: xxis 12; 176: 2033 Xx.'23, § 36: f.;) xxi. VSeny, 40 ea 
Job xxxvil. 7, 262. Acts Mk) 215557345 1Vi 125 355.5. eiL aes 
Isa. ix. 67 97,5292 5 Mili OG H. 262; xili. 48, 426; xxii. 18, 175. 


Matt. vi. 12, 466; villi. 10-12, 483; xi. | Rom. i. 18-23, 293 f.; ii. 14, 15, 293 f., 
21-23, F 75s) RUN SAAAI Vee Os LO, 316% 1%. 255,440 540V.. 12-215 Sa ee 
489)\'f64.536 16,5 xvill! 20, 26250 xvili. vil, 8,.'22,''23) 276 £3 vill) A Gaara 
18, .5365.(xier 26,081; saxiigea 36; VL 7, 2761. * villa) BOLL 7, a ee 
XXIV. 29-31, 550. viii. 19-22, 251 f., 565; Vili. 28-30, 

Markt! 23) 20,58 713 \iv.183, 12,426 422 f/3ix+xi., 307.4, 419 fF; 59th 
f.5  xilL.’ 10, $413) xiii.) 24-27, 5505) Cor, vi. 3, 2613 rix, 26,'279479 9) ees 
xili. 32, 342. Z2II; XV. 24; 22, 3L5¥ XV. 24-20, 200s 

Dukes xr16,, 2663°RRL 23°24 7 597 xvi. XV. 42-44, 562 f. 

31, 1753 Xvi. V.9-17,)450, -xxlheg2,| 2°Cor. i, 14) 2152 v T-5o ghia, 
495 f. Gal. ill. 13, 397; v.17, 276 f. 








INDEX OF AUTHORS. 


Eph. i. 4-7, 423; ii. 3, 316. 

Phil. ii. 5-8, 345; iii. 11, 566. 

Col. i. 15, 209; 1. 17, 235; 1. 19-22, 346. 
1 Thess. iv. 16-18, 561. 

2 Thess. ii. 3-12, 546. 

1 Tim, iii. 1-9, 500. 

Titus i. §-9, 500. 


Heb. 1., 205, 219; ii. 11-17, 326; vi. 4-| Rev. xii. 4, 260; xii. 9, 264; xix. 


Giavos Vi 2s, 2053: ix, 24, 3973) x 
1j440} Mis 3,235) X11.'9, 254. 


Ill.— INDEX OF 


Adrian VI., 499. 

Agatho, 496. 

AllenpA. YoG,, 501 f. 

Ambrose, 213. 

Amort, Eusebius, 535. 

Amphilochius, 121. 

Anrich, Gustav, 153. 

Anselm, 69 f. 

Apollinaris, 329 f., 354. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 171, 191, 224, 495, 
576. 

Athanasius, 121, 213. 

Athenagoras, 199, 213. 

Augustine, 163, 189, 225, 304, 496 f., 
508, 579. 


Baader, Franz von, 169. 

Bascom, John, 64. 

Bamabas, 199. 

Basil, 213. 

Beet, J. A. 550. 

Bellarmin, 154, 440, 446. 

Beyschlag, W., 91, 258. 

Bissell, E. C., 124. 

Boehme, Jacob, 168 f. 

Bonaventura, 163. 

Boniface VIIIL., 480. 

Bossuet, 496. 

Bousset, W., 546. 

3owne, Borden P., 7, 37 £5 49, 57, 162, 
174, 191 f., 238. 

Bright, Wm., 492. 

Bruce, A. B., 337, 420, 445, 451. 

Brugsch, H., 288. 

Bushnell, Horace, 94, 335, 387 f., 403, 
413. 


Caird, John, 349, 352 f., 533. 
Calvin, John, 176, 409. 


661 


James ii. 14-26, 449 f.; v. 16, 435. 

I Pet. ii. 24, 397; iti. 18-20, iv. 6, 362 

+» 550. 

2 Pet. iii. 8, 548. 

I John, i. 8, 465 f.; ii. 
BUG Tear Vendy S714: Ve 

Jude 7, 574. 


2, 405; iv. 9, 
20, 202. 


261; xx. 4-6, 543 ff; xx. 14, §73; 


¥E,21,, 506. 


AUTHORS. 


Charles, R. H., 546. 

Clarke, Wm. N., 188. 

Clement of Alexandria, 197 f., 213, 531. 
Clement of Rome, 200, 213 f. 

Clement XI., 499. 

Cyprian, 493, 518, 521. 

Cyril of Jerusalem, 213. 


Darwin, Charles, 63, 241. 

Delitzsch, Franz, 169. 

Descartes, 70 ff., 191. 

Dillmann, A., 211, 234, 265, 368. 

Déllinger, Ignaz von, 495 f. 

Dorner, I. A., 105, 164, 217, 265, 517, 
S4i. 

Duns Scotus, 191. 


Ebrard, J. H. A., 345, 347, 390. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 297, 299 f, 


Eichhorn, J. G., 124. 
Eimer, G. H. T., 241. 
Ellis, Geo. E., 217. 
Erskine, Thomas, 392. 
Eugenius IV., 499. 


Eusebius, 213, 493. 
Fairbairn, A. M., 487. 
Fichte, 39. 

Fiske, Daniel, 459. 
Flint, Robert, 51. 
Flourens, 43. 

Frank, Fr. H. R., 215. 
Friedrich, J., 155. 


Garvie, A. E., 166. 
Gelasius IJ., 498. 

Gess, W. F., 344, 347. 
Gordon, Geu. A., 21. 
Greene, Lhomas Hill, 6, 


662 INDEX OF 


Gregory Nazianzen, 121, 212 f. 
Gregory of Nyssa, 213. 
Gregory XVI., 498. 

Gustafson, A., 627. 


Hamilton, Sir William, 161, 244. 


Harnack, Adolf, 133, 138, 196, 201, 


501. 
Harris, Samuel, 13, 67. 
Hedge, lV. H., 217. 
Hegel, 39, 40, 160, 225. 
Hermas, 199. 
Hippolytus, 196, 213. 
Hodge, Charles, 300, 395 f., 428 f. 
H{oltzmann, H. J., 138, 443. 
Hommel, Fritz, 288. 
Honorius I., 498. 
Tlopkins, E. W., 596. 
Horton, R. F., 122. 
Howison, G. H., 51. 
Hume, David, 107. 
Huxley, Thomas H., 241. 


Ignatius of Antioch, 200, 213. 
Ianocent III., 498. 


Trenzeus, 152, 198, 213 f., 492, 530. 


James, Wm., 43. 
Jastrow, Morris, 232, 288, 592. 
Justin Martyr, 1§2, 199, 213. 


Kant, 8 ff., 65. 
Kee Ns 627. 


Ladd) G; Ts,°Ao f. 
Lamarck, 241. 
Lankester, E. Ray, 239. 
Lao-tse, 116. 

Laymann, P., 538. 


Le Conte, Joseph, 237 ft., 242, 288. 


Lehmann, Edv., 226. 
Leibnitz, 305. 
Lenormant, F., 288. 
Leo X., 498. 

Leo XIII., 498. 
Leontius, 121. 
Lidgett, J. S., 385. 
Lightfoot, J. B., 500 f. 
Liguori, 495, 538. 
Loofs, F., 589. 

Lotze, Hermann, 37, 69, 297, 357. 
Luther, Martin, 340. 
Lyell, Charles, 288. 


McCabe) LisDi 277) £, 
Malou, Bishop of Bruges, 155. 
Mansel, H. L., 160 ff. 


AUTHORS. 


Mansi, 496. 

Martensen, H., 263, 554. 
Martin, V., 499. 

Martineau, James, 334. 

Maspero, G., 592. 

Maurice, F. D., 392. 

Melito, 121. 

Meyer, H. A. W., 220, 345, 449. 
Miley, John, 400. 

Mill, John Stuart, 5, 59, 64, 182. 
Miiller, Stig, 283. 

Myers, F., 502. 


Newman, J. H., 155 f. 490. 
Nicephorus, 121. 
Nitzsch, F. A. B., 226. 


Novatian, 196, 213. 


Origen, 181, 195, 213, 283, 310, 358. 


Orr, James, 21, 353. 
Ottley, R. L., 96. 


Paulsen, Friedrich, 42 f., 174. 
Paulus, E. G., 108 

Perrone, 155. 

Peter Lombard, 510, 535. 
Petrie, W. M. ¥, 288. 
Pfleiderer, Otto, 62 fi. 162, 442 
Philo, 283. 

Piepenbring, Ch., 273. 

Pius IX., 498. 

Plato, 245, 283. 

Plotinus, 597 ff. 

Polycarp, 200. 

Powell, H. C., 356. 

Prestwich, J., 288 f. 

Pullus, 535. 

Parves, .G.0 T1124. 

Pusey, E. B. , 503. 


Quinet, Edgar, tor f. 


Renan, Ernest, 109. 

Reusch, F. H., 495. 

Rhees, Rush, 137. 

Rice, W. N., 289. 

Riehm, Edward, 123 f., 211, 368. 
Rishell, C. W., 11 


Ritschl, Albrecht, 165, 367, 388 f., 


403, 448. 
Rogers, R. W., 288. 
Romanes, G. J., 41, 47 f., 62, 237. 
Rosmini, Antonio, 355. 
Rothe, Richard, 177. 
Routh, M. J. 195. 
Royce, Josiah, 21. 
Ryle, H. Eo, ter. 





INDEX OF AUTHORS. 663 


Sabatier, Auguste, 21. Tertullian, 194 f., 196, 213 f., gor f., 
Salmond, S. D. F., 281 f. 518. 

Sanday, W., 137, 356. Theophilus, 199. 

Sasse, J. B.. 538. Thomasius, G., 343 f., 347, 349. 
Saussaye. De la, 594. Tylor, E. B., 53. 


Sayce, A. H., 122, 124 f., 288. 

Schleiermacher, 22 f., 164, 181, 387 ff., 
402. 

Schelling. 160. 

Schmitz, H. J., 535. 

Schultz, Hermann, 86, 98, 211 f., 368. | Van Oosterzee, 335. 

Schurman, J. G., 165. Vincentius, 154, 

Seth, Andrew, I1, 70, 248, 292. 

Shedd, W. G. T., 177, 317. ; 

Smith, W. Robertson, 83, 129. Reig se sa 

Spc Faustus, 177, 386. Aretha: ke ‘241, 

Socrates, 534- Weiss, Bernhard, 134, 137, » 546. 

Eee oR Wendt, H. H., 1 ea Raat 

Spencer, Herbert, 5 ft., 40, 49, 67, 161. sie atte IB eal 531. 

Spinoza, paritr Whately, Richard, 502. 

Stalker, James, Bet Willmann, Otto, 526, 605 f. 

Stave, Erik, 260. Wilson, E. B., 241. 

Steele, Daniel, 476. ; : 

Stevens, Geo. B., 130, 203, 314, 443, 
546, 550. Zeller, E., 598, 602. 

Strauss, David, 46, tog. 

Swedenborg, 391 f. 


Ueberweg, 603. 
Ulrici, Hermann, 57, 297. 





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